The SNP leadership will move to take the whip from one of the party’s most experienced MSPs within days after his repeated criticism of Humza Yousaf’s policies, The Times has been told.
Several senior sources in the nationalist Holyrood group said that Fergus Ewing, a minister under Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond, will be severely disciplined for a series of rebellions.
He faced sanction after voting against Lorna Slater, the Green minister for the circular economy, in a confidence vote because of her handling of the botched deposit return scheme.
However the punishment process was delayed when his mother, Winnie Ewing, the SNP trailblazer, died in June.
Ewing dropped a heavy hint he will once again break the whip and vote against the