SNP urged to put independence on backburner for 10 years

20 June 2025, 17:35

A veteran SNP MSP who has quit the party to run as an independent candidate at next year’s Holyrood elections says independence needs to be off the agenda for a decade.

Fergus Ewing told LBC that trust has been lost in the SNP and there’s no “sugar-coating” the fact.

The MSP was speaking in the wake of his announcement that he is to stand as an independent candidate in the constituency of Inverness and Nairn. He will not stand on the regional list.

His decision brings to an end more than half a century of involvement with the SNP, during which time he served as a government minister under both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.

He says the decision to leave the party was taken with "sadness" but he felt the SNP had "lost its way".

Asked if that was the case on the question of independence, he says: “To be honest and candid, and I don't think we can sugarcoat this particular pill for those like me that have lived their lives still wishing to see an independent Scotland, but the trust in the people in the SNP has been seriously damaged.

“Competent government builds trust. We need 10 years of competent government, 10 years of focusing on working with our excellent businesses to build up economic strength, and only then will people want to move on to the next chapter in Scotland's story.

“That may be a difficult truth for those who are desperate for independence tomorrow to accept. But I think what's happened at the moment is that Nicola and John, rather than be absolutely honest in an unvarnished way with the electorate, they keep on saying independence is just around the corner.

“Well, we've been around every corner, four or five times around the block, over the past few years. There's no shortcuts, there's no magic solutions. It's competent government, it's trust, it's economic success.”

He adds: “It's a hard thing to say, because this is not personal. I'm not, over the next 11 months, going to spend my time attacking any individual. That's not what I'm about. I'm not about bringing individuals or parties down. I want Scotland to come up and for us to work, to try and work together.

“The divide between independence and unionists is severe, but I think it's not unbridgeable at all. I work with people who are unionists every day, I think I built up their trust. It's possible to do, but you have to be accepting of other people's points of view and not dismissing them or othering them, as seems to have been much of the case, much of the time over the past few years.”

As a result, he says, he believes a Cabinet consisting of the best performers at Holyrood would be welcome by the Scottish electorate, in order to achieve the competence he believes has disappeared from within the Scottish Government.

“My view is that there are good people in each party. I work with them in the Highlands at the local level. Why can't we do that as a national level? That's what people in election after election said, ‘why can't you all work together? Why can't you put your differences aside

“So why don't we be grown up, mature? I think a Cabinet composed of the best people in each party would actually find favour if you were to poll the people of Scotland. And you know, it sounds naive, it sounds like a fanciful dream, but if Reform do become the second party, I think many people might start to see it not as a fanciful dream, but as a necessity,”

Could such a move would be acceptable in a democratic parliament? "It's actually what has happened in Germany and also in Ireland." he says. "Because of threats from the AfD in Germany, the Christian Democrats and the SPD work together. And in Ireland, the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have worked together with Sinn Fein's ascendancy. So a firewall, a protection. It's not so much a distortion or moving the rules. It's acting in a grown up way.”

Yet Mr Ewing has in the past been clear he was against the co-operative agreement signed by Nicola Sturgeon with the Scottish Greens, which brought them into government. Indeed he was suspended from the SNP for a brief period in 2023 for refusing to vote with the government in support of Greens MSP Lorna Slater when she faced a vote of no confidence.

“I did make the argument back in 2021 to Nicola at the group meeting when it was decided to go in with the Greens, I said we will damage ourselves by association with a fringe party that has got policies which are widely opposed, hated in rural Scotland, are unworkable, unaffordable and undeliverable, and so it's proved to pass.

“Almost every policy in the Bute House agreement has been scrapped and is in the burgeoning recycling policy unit at St Andrews House, the biggest, fastest growing directorate there. But she said, ‘No, no, we can't work with the other parties’. Well, actually, John is having to do that now. He's showing that it's possible.

“What I'm saying is we should do it fortissimo, not pianissimo. We should be honest and say, let's work together for the good of Scotland. Focus on a strong economy, reform our public services, and let's leave issues about who uses whose toilet to one side for five or 10 years. And also, I hope we've run out of things to ban or make free.”

He admits that his decision to quit the SNP was “inevitable” though it had been made with “sadness, given the loyalty I have to the party over half a century and more importantly to many of the people and characters in the party that I've worked.”

He said there were three reasons to go: ‘One, the promises that were made to provide safer roads for the highlands, the Highlanders, have been broken. And I can't defend the indefensible.

“Secondly, the party, the party that my mother stood for and won elections after elections, along with many other colleagues, stood up for people first. We're not putting the people first. And thirdly I think people are disillusioned with the parliament as an institution. I've been there for 26 years. I've seen the best and I've seen the worst, and I'm very sad to say, but the last four years have been the worst, and there's no getting away from it.

“I'm standing again because I want to finish the business of the the fairer, safer roads the Highlands, but I would like to see the party that I've served for half a century return to one that supports Scottish people, and I can't really see how it's ever going to go other than backwards, unless it reverts to what it used to be before.”

Yet opinion polls currently have the SNP on track to be the largest party at Holyrood again next year.

He adds: “Well, the party has lost three quarters of its MPs. It's lost 65,000 members, and it's lost 10 to 15% in the opinion polls, If it were to win the election, it would be a kind of Pyrrhic victory, because it would do so simply because Reform is predicted to alarmingly become possibly the second party. Surely, this is a warning sign, a sign that Holyrood, which has gone through a sort of late adolescence well, it's time to grow up.”

He says he’s had “an overwhelming response” when he first mooted he might stand as an independent back in March, but that he’s taking “nothing for granted” and will “fight to win”.

“I've got, I think, a small army behind me. And it's amazing what you can achieve with a small but dedicated battalion of troops behind you. And I think more important than that is my pledge is to speak out without fear of favor, without defending the party line, even when it becomes indefensible, like on the A9 and A96. I will not backtrack in my promises. I will not U turn.

“I will not say, let's have a review of the A9 and then take four years not to complete it. I will not say, let's stay complete the Nairn bypass, we're completely behind it, but actually, after 11 years, we spent £100 million and not one centimetre of tarmac has been laid. I think really, what is missing from the SNP collectively, is where there should be an honesty to accept mistakes, there is denial, where there should be humility, there is hubris, and I think people can see through that.”

Both John Swinney and Kate Forbes have today said they learned of Fergus Ewing’s decision to quit the SNP “with sadness and regret”.

So did he pick up the phone to tell his former party leader he was going? “No, I didn't. I didn't do that. I mean, John and I haven't really spoken for quite a long time, but as I say, it's not personal.”