Nicola Sturgeon resigns

As predicted on the Whitehall Sources podcast in January

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For more weeks than I had ever anticipated, this column has been examining the prospects of Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister. In office for eight years, she was the longest serving First Minister our country has had. She entered government in 2007. It is an innings that is admirable in duration, even if not in outcome. To test this statement, ask: What is better for me now, than in 2007?

In her resignation press conference, she cited a lack of privacy as a difficulty in being First Minister, and described a greater “brutality” and intensity of scrutiny to being a politician these days which takes a toll on them and those around them. She continued: “If the only question was ‘can I battle on for another few months’ then the answer is ‘yes, of course I can.’” But she concluded that she could not give it every ounce of energy through to the next election.

As one correspondent reflected, her resignation statement sounded similar to that of Jacinda Ardern, who stood down as New Zealand’s Prime Minister only weeks ago. She talked about the relentless pressure of being First Minister: "I am a human being as well as a politician." 

“Leading this country through a pandemic is by far the toughest thing I have done - it may well be the toughest thing I’ll ever do…the weight of responsibility was immense, and it’s only recently I started to process the physical and mental impact of it on me.”

There is no way to feel what it was like for those in leadership during the pandemic. It is unimaginable. There was no joy. No joy in restricting our lives and their’s; no joy in the death toll rocking up while information on this killer virus was lacking; there were no dreams fulfilled in shutting borders and making mistakes that led to - that horrible phrase - excess deaths. We are all dealing with the impact of the pandemic on ourselves and that includes leaders in Holyrood and Westminster and around the world. 

“And obviously there is independence.” Here lies the problem. 

Independence as a cause in a democracy is valid, obviously. I take no issue with that. I take no issue with those who believe in it, who pursue it, who want it and who love it. I take issue with those whose sole purpose, whose only focus, whose determination is so blinkered by the idea of independence that the rest of society suffers. The First Minister called on opposition parties to focus on: “Issues rather than personalities.” I bet those who are waiting in A&E, those waiting for mental health treatment, those in schools - staff and pupils - who are struggling with Scotland’s creaking education system, those who waited nine additional years for the Sick Kids Hospital in Edinburgh, the families bereaved by drugs, those from the poorest backgrounds who have less chance of getting into university, those at the bottom end of the attainment gap, those who longed for a national energy company, those waiting for an effective Deposit Return Scheme, and those waiting for the dualling of the A9 wish the First Minister had spent more time on issues other than independence. 

There has been much commentary about the lack of a successor to the First Minister. Perhaps this is the biggest void in fulfilling her duty. What happens now? Perhaps it is the nature of politics - how do you tee up someone to replace you, without them staging a coup and deposing you on the spot? But perhaps there is a duty to plan for succession in leadership so that the country you love is served well.

I just about managed to get away without mentioning it. On the Whitehall Sources podcast which I co-host with Kirsty Buchanan, a former Special Adviser to Prime Minister Theresa May, and Frankie Leach, a former adviser to Jeremy Corbyn, I predicted, on our first episode of 2023, that Nicola Sturgeon would not be the First Minister of Scotland by the end of the year. I kept a thread on Twitter as the month between that prediction and her resignation ticked by. There was the Gender Reform Bill, through which Sturgeon backed herself into an unnecessarily ill thought-out corner; there was a terrible press conference when she couldn’t choose which pronouns to use in referring to a convicted rapist; there were the questions about her husband’s loan to the SNP of over £100,000 that she couldn’t quite answer as well. 

On the podcast early in February, Alex Bell who used to advise Alex Salmond as First Minister told us that Nicola Sturgeon had lost her grip on the national pulse; that the pressure on her feels more like people getting angry at a coffee morning than a rebellion; that Sturgeon leads a party that is not strong on policy. Policy always took a back seat if it came close to harming the cause of independence. He had also suggested that if she were to pause and rethink the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, the people of Scotland would forgive her. 

As it transpires, she’s alluded in her resignation remarks to the basic point: she’s done. She’s done her bit. She’s concluded her time of “achievement” and it’s time to stand aside.