Nicola Sturgeon’s exit marks the end of a turbulent era in Scottish politics
12 March 2025, 13:28
The inevitable has finally happened: Nicola Sturgeon has announced she will not stand for re-election to the Scottish Parliament at next year’s elections.
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The deadline for selection as an SNP candidate was fast approaching - and despite putting her hat in the ring to be vetted as a potential candidate, which prompted surprised speculation she would want to remain on the political merry-go-round, she has now decided the ride has to come to an end.
Despite being close friends, it’s probably the best political news John Swinney has had in a long time.
Her departure from Holyrood will mean he can draw a line under the tumultuous events that have swamped his party in the last two years - and it will mean no tricky questions about the candidate for Glasgow Southside.
An MSP since 1999 and the creation of the Scottish Parliament, Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to quit frontline politics brings to an end a controversial political career.
From the heady heights of becoming First Minister in 2014, to the lows of being arrested and questioned - though never charged - as part of Police Scotland’s Operation Branchform investigation into SNP finances, it has been a rollercoaster for the woman who joined the SNP in 1986 as a shy, bookish girl, who fiercely believed in Scottish independence as an antidote to Thatcherism.
It was the Scottish Parliament and its proportional representation system of electing MSPs which saw her succeed in being elected after previous disappointment in Westminster and council elections. She didn’t win the Glasgow Govan constituency in the first Holyrood elections, but got in on the regional list to become an MSP.
It was only when the SNP made a political breakthrough in 2007 that she became a constituency MSP - and also Deputy First Minister and health secretary in Alex Salmond’s minority government.
The pinnacle of her career though was becoming First Minister in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum.
She and her party may have failed to convince Scots to vote yes, but the resignation of Alex Salmond saw her catapulted into a kind of pop idol stardom - giving speeches to sold out arenas, as people flocked to join the SNP and hear what she had to say. She led her party to win 56 out of 59 MPs in the General Election of 2015. Never had the SNP been so popular, or powerful.
But like all idols, her feet were made of clay.
Ultimately she became a divisive character - she admitted as much the day she stood down as First Minister two years ago, after an eight year reign.
Her legacy was devoured at that point - she hadn’t delivered on independence, which had led many supporters to become restive; her proposed gender reforms saw her castigated by JK Rowling as a destroyer of women’s rights, and the Bill ended up blocked by the UK govt, but leaving a nation at war with itself over the definition of the word woman.
Her ambitious environmental targets were never met, and neither was her desire to close the poverty related attainment gap. Her plan to create a National Care Service also now lies in pieces – and drugs deaths soared during her time in charge, a result many believe of her decision to cut budgets while health secretary.
On the plus side her calm leadership through the pandemic was regarded by many as a direct contrast to that of Boris Johnson’s - even if she has similarly since stood accused of deleting vital Whatsapp messages the Covid public inquiry wished to have seen.
She introduced the Scottish Child Payment to tackle child poverty, and the baby box - a gift from the state to all newborns, full of things needed in the first month of life. Early years learning was also vastly expanded.But it is the last two years which have soured any legacy.
Her decision to quit as FM was a bolt from the blue and threw the SNP into disarray, with a brutal contest to replace her. And it also transpired that she and her husband Peter Murrell, the SNP chief executive, were caught up in the Police Scotland investigation, Operation Branchform, looking into allegations of a missing £600,000, raised for a second independence referendum.
The images of a forensic police tent pitched outside their suburban home will never leave the public consciousness. She was arrested and questioned - though never charged. He, on the other hand, has since been charged with embezzlement, though any trial is yet to take place.
On Instagram last month, she announced that they had separated. And it was on Instagram again she announced she would not seek re-election in May, joining 24 other MSPs who have already made that decision, the vast majority of them from the SNP, including her close friend, finance secretary Shona Robison.
In her post she said that she was “sad to be closing the book on this remarkable and deeply fulfilling chapter of my life” but we know she’s currently writing her own book on her life as a politician - Instagram will no doubt alert the world of its publication day.
And its contents will likely once again put her name back in the headlines, which despite her protestations, you feel she rather likes.
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Gina Davidson is LBC's Scotland political editor.
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