THE woman tipped as the next SNP leader has said she experienced attacks from within the party driven by a “huge streak of misogyny”.
Joanna Cherry QC, a key figure behind Boris Johnson’s defeat in the Supreme Court last week, said other party members resented her for being a “successful, forthright woman”.
She also confirmed she would consider a run at the leadership once there is a vacancy.
The Edinburgh South West MP’s stock is riding high after she led a Scottish legal challenge to the Prime Minister’s prorogation of parliament alongside 75 other MPs and peers.
That fight, and a similar one by activist Gina Miller south of the border, led to the Court’s unanimous ruling that the “extreme” five-week suspension was unlawful.
MPs returned to parliament the day after the prorogation was also deemed null and of no effect.
During the case, it emerged Mr Johnson had called former PM David Cameron a “girly swot” in a handwritten memo released by the government.
Ms Cherry said the prominence of women in the two cases, as well as the central role of Court President Lady Hale, meant it had been “quite a good week for girly swots”.
In June, a Commons watchdog dismissed bullying allegations against Ms Cherry that she had called “politically motivated smears arising from SNP infighting”.
In a Sunday newspaper interview, Ms Cherry said : “There’s a very small minority of people in the SNP who have sought to smear me because I am a successful, forthright woman who says what she thinks.
“There’s a huge streak of misogyny in it. I’m really glad that I’ve managed to face it down successfully. I am extremely popular with the membership, and I think some people don’t like that very much.”
Asked about her leadership ambitions, Ms Cherry, who was first elected in 2015, said any talk of her plotting to oust Ms Sturgeon was “ridiculous”, especially as she was an MP and the leader must be an MSP.
However she went on: “There is no vacancy. But I’m not ruling myself out as a potential future leadership figure. It’s not something I would rule our or rule in at this stage. I will see how things develop.
“I have no doubt I that I want to part of the Indyref2 campaign and I would eventually like to serve in the government of an independent Scotland, if I’m lucky enough to be elected to the independent parliament and get to that level.”
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