The reasons for Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation will be mulled over and debated, but we can leave that to the biographers. What matters now is what the resignation might mean for the SNP, Scottish and UK politics in the coming years.
Sturgeon will leave a big gap and replacing her won’t be an easy job. Likely candidates will be John Swinney (currently Deputy FM), Angus Robertson (current Cabinet Secretary for Constitutional Affairs and former Westminster leader), and Kate Forbes (current Cabinet Secretary for Finance), but none has the profile of the person they are replacing.
Latterly, Sturgeon has increasingly tied-up a lot of political capital in issues that have not gone well – both her strategy towards independence, and also the gender recognition reforms have become – rightly or wrongly given she led the country through Covid – the defining issues of her premiership. Her departure creates the space her party and/or the Scottish Government may need to change their approach, something that would have been politically impossible for her to do.
From a UK point of view, that could mean a new approach to the independence question, and while the issue absolutely won’t go away – the country remains split down the middle on it – a new FM may not feel the same time pressure to bring it to a head as Sturgeon did, so it is possible they could revert to a more gradual approach. There is little prospect of a more fundamentalist leader, who may want to take a more bullish approach, despite the noisy fringe who would like to see more definitive action.
And while the next UK election will be dominated by questions of independence – not least because the unionist side want to keep it that way for their own electoral reasons – the new FM will want to create a sense of purpose to lead into the next Scottish elections, and so the likelihood is that there will be a greater focus on the domestic agenda, which is not without its challenges.
From a UK Government perspective, this means they no longer have to deal with a popular and formidable opponent, and it means their fingers-in-the-ears strategy for dealing with independence will hold for a while longer, while the Scottish Government resets. But it also means a degree of uncertainty for them, with the prospect of a new leader bringing a new strategy, and potentially new momentum.
Lastly, the timing may have come as a shock, but perhaps that is a good sign. Few politicians get the timing of their departure right, and it is maybe a final display of her instinct for sound political judgement, judgement that has, whatever your politics, cemented her place as one of the leading figures in post-devolution Scottish history.
by Kevin O’Donnell and Keith Small, Lexington Scotland