In a round of interviews to mark his first year as First Minister, John Swinney declared he’d “healed” his party after a year of splits, rifts and chaos.
Mhairi Black’s decision to quit the SNP suggests those wounds are still open.
The resignation of someone once tipped by Nicola Sturgeon as a future first minister is hugely embarrassing and politically difficult — even if not entirely unexpected.
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She’d already hinted at walking away back in March, while promoting her new documentary. Asked by the BBC if she was still an SNP member, she replied: “At the minute.” Could she see herself in another party one day? “Maybe. If the SNP goes to the right, absolutely I would join a different party.”
Has the party really lurched to the right that much since March? Or is this more to do with shifting tickets at the Edinburgh Fringe?
Undoubtedly, this will generate headlines during a crucial week for festival box office sales. But the bigger problem for Swinney is that Black isn’t alone. Others in the party feel the same — especially when it comes to what’s now the SNP’s deepest fault line.
It’s no longer a split between gradualists and fundamentalists on independence. The defining schism is now between gender-critical and gender-identity factions.
Plenty in the former camp suggest the Scottish Government is dragging its heels on responding to the Supreme Court ruling because [[John Swinney]] fears alienating the latter.
It may be too late for that.
Black could be abrasive, combative, and unafraid to go in with both feet — even against her own colleagues, especially against her own colleagues.
She very publicly fell out with Joanna Cherry and criticised Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes, calling Forbes’s views on gay marriage “archaic” and “quite extreme”.
But throughout her time in Westminster, she cultivated a youthful, progressive following and a social media presence no other SNP MP could match. She wasn’t just one of the party’s youngest MPs — she was one of its most recognisable.
Her exit arguably shifts the party further away from its younger, more progressive wing — and risks leaving those members behind.
Can [[John Swinney]] hold his warring factions together? Black won’t be the first to leave, and she won’t be the last. October’s party conference in Aberdeen is gearing up to be a very difficult gathering for the First Minister.
In politics, timing is everything. Black’s departure lands just days after Swinney set out his latest plan for independence. Her resignation is as scathing a verdict as you’ll get.
Nicola Sturgeon once said: “The world needs more Mhairi Blacks in politics, not fewer.” Today, there’s one less in the SNP — and more than a few wondering who might be next.
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