Farewell Nicola Sturgeon: A political career that ended in failure

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When the inevitable news of the end of Nicola Sturgeon’s political career came, she chose, like President Trump, to use social media to make her announcement. Posting on her new favourite platform, Instagram, she told the world – and the people that she represents in Glasgow’s Southside – that the time was right for her to embrace new opportunities. But she left with a strong hint that we have not heard the last of her. “It is more important than ever that progressive voices, inside and outside of Parliaments, continue to speak up for fairness, equality, and dignity for all.” And in what could be perceived as a warning by those of us less enamoured of the former First Minister than her (shrinking) fan club, she said: “Be in no doubt that I will always speak out and stand up for what I believe in.”

Interestingly, however, her farewell letter contained no reference to the “F-word”. No mention of women. Nowhere in the carefully-crafted 708-word epistle is there even a hint that she had been Scotland’s first female First Minister, or that feminism and women’s rights had been such a major factor in her nine years at the top of Scottish politics. As a self-described “passionate, lifelong feminist”, it was a strange omission. After all, women leaders are still far too rare in the macho world of politics. Her ascendancy to the top job in November 2014 was a major achievement. She could even, as her fan-girls argue, be considered as a role model for young women considering a career in public service. She did break the mould of Scottish politics. Yet she made no reference to her sex, or even her gender. It was as if it didn’t matter.

Women were her downfall

Yet her defining legacy is all about women and their rights. She may argue that she will be remembered for the refurbished Govanhill Baths and the Scottish Child Payment, but it was her insistence that men can be women if they so choose and the women’s rights campaign that grew up in opposition to her gender reforms that dominated the last five years of her First Ministership, and as she later admitted, contributed to her downfall. In one of those delicious plot twists that no fiction writer would use for fear of being too obvious, her announcement on Wednesday came as the Scottish Parliament debated whether women have the right to single-sex spaces. And in a few weeks’ time, the UK’s Supreme Court will rule on the legal definition of a woman, in a landmark case brought by For Women Scotland and prompted by Sturgeon’s contention that a man is a woman as long as he has a certificate to say so.

In a further plot twist, only hours after she had posted her news on Instagram, a group of women gathered in one of the Scottish Parliament’s largest committee rooms for an event to mark International Women’s Day. The meeting was sponsored by a Conservative MSP, Pam Gosal, but the attendees were drawn from across the political spectrum and none, and from a wide range of personal and professional backgrounds. What united them was their sex, and their interest in how women can use their voices to effect change. They heard a young Afghan woman tell of how the Taliban have silenced women and girls. They listened to an eminent professor describe how Scotland’s Suffragettes transformed political campaigning to win the right to vote. And a woman who upended her career and lifestyle to look after her brother, and now her elderly father, spoke out on behalf of Scotland’s unpaid carers. There are 628,000 unpaid carers in Scotland according to the 2022 Census, most of them women.

No feminist

The F-word was used often. Women’s rights were liberally scattered throughout the discussion. But there was no mention of Nicola Sturgeon. No reference to the woman who had once dominated the room whenever women met, whether they came to bury or praise her. Her ghost did not even hover over the proceedings. Even though she was likely still in the building, on a day that she had dominated the news agenda, her name was not invoked once. It was as if she had never been.

Irrelevance – this is Nicola Sturgeon’s legacy. She was a mediocre, thin-skinned politician who demanded complete loyalty for fear of losing control. Never a deep political thinker nor a skilled strategist, she rose to prominence as Alex Salmond’s protégé, only to turn on him when she considered it expedient to do so. Her fervour for gender identity theory, which split her party and divided the country, in part grew out of her ambition to be a player in global progressive politics. She traded women’s rights for a photo-op with Hillary Clinton. Her only contribution to feminism was to create the conditions for a resurgence in old-school feminism, known to historians as the second wave. Feminism that demands nothing less than the full social, economic and political liberation of women and girls – and, of course, single-sex spaces.

So farewell Nicola Sturgeon, as she starts her new career as a Z-list celebrity. Her first gig is next Saturday, when she takes the stage at Glasgow’s International Comedy Festival for an hour of banter with her new best friend, crime novelist Val McDermid. While Scotland’s first female First Minister promises an hour of “lively chat and lots of laughs” for £25 a ticket, Scottish women will be on the march, campaigning against male violence, standing up for carers, refugees, equality, giving power to women without a voice and to girls with no future. She will not be missed.

This article was first published in the Scotsman on 15 March 2025