Nicola Sturgeon will step down as First Minister of Scotland, she has confirmed. In a shock announcement, the SNP leader said she believes it is the right time to stand aside.
She told a press conference at Bute House in Edinburgh on Wednesday she has instructed the SNP to begin the process of electing a new leader. However she said she would remain in office until her successor is chosen.
The longest serving – and first female – First Minister denied she was reacting to recent pressures which have seen her embroiled in a fight to push through gender reforms only for them to be blocked by the UK government. She has also been forced to deal with the housing of transgender prisoners in women's facilities.
Speaking at the unexpected press conference said serving as First Minister of Scotland has been a “privilege beyond measure”. She said: “I am proud to stand here as the first female and longest serving incumbent of this office and I am very proud of what has been achieved in the years I’ve been blessed to do this.
“However, since the very first moment in the job, I have believed that part of serving well would be to know, almost instinctively, when the time is right, to make way for someone else. And when that time came, to have the courage to do so, even if to many across the country and in my party, might feel it too soon.
“In my head and in my heart I know that time is now. That it is right for me, for my party and for the country. And so today I am announcing my intention to step down as First Minister and leader of my party.”
She said her decision was “is not a reaction to short-term pressures”. Setting out “as best as I can my reasons”, Ms Sturgeon said: “First, though I know it will be tempting to see it as such, this decision is not a reaction to short-term pressures. Of course there are difficult issues confronting the government just now, but when is that ever not the case?
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“I have spent almost three decades in frontline politics, a decade-and-a-half on the top or second-top rung of government. When it comes to navigating choppy waters, resolving seemingly intractable issues, or soldiering on when walking away would be the simpler option, I have plenty of experience to draw on.
“So if this was just a question of my ability or my resilience to get through the latest period of pressure I wouldn’t be standing here today, but it’s not. This decision comes from a deeper and longer-term assessment. I know it may seem sudden, but I have been wrestling with it, albeit with oscillating levels of intensity for some weeks.
“Essentially, I’ve been trying to answer two questions: Is carrying on right for me? And more importantly is me carrying on right for the country, for my party and for the independence cause I have devoted my life to?”
She said her resignation as Scotland’s First Minister “frees the SNP” on the issue of Scottish independence “to choose the path it believes to be the right one without worrying about the perceived implications for my leadership”.
She said there needed to be a new SNP leader to make the argument for Scottish independence. Telling the briefing her party was “firmly on course to win the next election, while our opponents remain adrift” she added: “The longer any leader is in office, the more opinions about them become fixed and very hard to change, and that matters.
“Individual polls come and go, but I am firmly of the view that there is now majority support for independence in Scotland. But that support needs to be solidified and it needs to grow further if our independent Scotland is to have the best possible foundation.
“To achieve that, we must reach across the divide in Scottish politics and my judgment now is that a new leader would be better able to do this. Someone whom the mind of almost everyone in the country is not already made up, for better or worse. Someone who is not subject to quite the same polarised opinions, fair or unfair, as I now am.”
But she insisted she was “not leaving politics”, adding that she will continue to fight for Scottish independence. She said she no longer felt she could give the job of First Minister everything it deserves, and said she felt she had a duty to say so now.
Speaking in Edinburgh, Ms Sturgeon said leading Scotland through the pandemic is “by far the toughest thing I’ve done”, adding the weight of responsibility was “immense”. She added: “It’s only very recently I think that I’ve started to comprehend, let alone process, the physical and mental impact of it on me.”
She went on: “If the only question was ‘can I battle on for another few months?’, then the answer is yes, of course I can. But if the question is, ‘can I give this job everything it demands and deserves for another year, let alone for the remainder of this parliamentary term – give it every ounce of energy that it needs in the way that I have strived to do every day for the past eight years?’ – the answer honestly is different.
“And as that is my decision, hard though it has been for me to reach it, then given the nature and scale of the challenges the country faces, I have a duty to say so now.”
Continuing her resignation speech, she said being First Minister and Deputy First Minister is a “privilege”, adding: “But they are also really hard and especially in the case of First Minister relentlessly so.
“Now to be clear, I’m not expecting violins here. But I am a human being as well as a politician.
She added: “My point is this, giving absolutely everything of yourself to this job is the only way to do it. The country deserves nothing less.
“But in truth that can only be done by anyone for so long. For me, it is now in danger of becoming too long.
“A First Minister is never off duty, particularly in this day and age there is virtually no privacy. Even ordinary stuff that most people take for granted like going for a coffee with friends or for a walk on your own becomes very difficult.”
She added: “I feel more and more each day now that the fixed opinions people increasingly have about me, some fair and others a little more than caricature, are being used as barriers to reason debate in our country. Statements and decisions that should not be controversial at all quickly become so. Issues that are controversial end up almost irrationally so.
“Too often I see issues presented as a result viewed, not on their own merits but through the prism of what I think and what people think of me. I’ve always been of the belief that no one individual should be dominant in any system for too long.”
She added: “If all parties were to take the opportunity to depolarise public debate just a bit, to focus more on issues that on personalities, and to reset the tone and the tenor of our discourse, then this decision, right for me, and I believe my party and the country, may also prove good for politics.”
She said by standing down it would “free” the SNP to take a decision on how best to pursue independence “without worrying about the perceived implications for my leadership”. She said: “I feel that duty first and foremost to our country to ensure that it has the energy of leadership that it needs not just today but through the years that remain of this parliamentary term.
“And right now, in a very particular sense, I feel that duty to my part too. We are at a critical moment. The blocking of our referendum as the accepted constitutional route to independence is a democratic outrage.
“My preference of using the next Westminster election as a de facto referendum is well known.” But she added: “I have always been clear that decision must be taken by the SNP collectively, not by me alone, but I know my party well enough to understand that my view as leader would carry enormous, probably decisive, weight, when our conference meets next month.
“And I cannot in good conscience ask the party to choose an option based on my judgment whilst not being convinced that I would be there as leader to see it through. By making my decision clear now I free the SNP to choose the path it believes to be the right one without worrying about the perceived implications for my leadership.”
Scottish Deputy First Minister John Swinney, one of several possible candidates who could succeed Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the SNP, has thanked the First Minister after her decision to step down. He tweeted: “I am very sorry (Ms Sturgeon) has decided to step down as First Minister and (the SNP) leader.
“She has given outstanding leadership to our country, Government and Party. As the first female, and longest serving First Minister, she has achieved much for Scotland. Minimum unit pricing of alcohol, expansion of early learning, measures to tackle domestic violence, delivery of The Promise and crucially, leadership through Covid, are just some.
“For our Party, she has delivered breathtaking electoral success, winning every election during her leadership, and securing two Scottish Parliament victories.
“It has been my privilege to support her as Deputy First Minister. She has my warmest good wishes for the future and heartfelt thanks for all that she has done for Scotland, for the cause of Independence and the Scottish National Party.”
