Nicola Sturgeon shocked us all with her resignation earlier this month. The leader of Scotland's government and a champion of her country's independence movement, announced that she would be stepping down during a hastily arranged press conference on 15 February, triggering the Scottish National Party's (SNP) first leadership contest in nearly 20 years.
In a speech semi-echoing that of the Jacinda Arden when she announced her resignation as the prime minister of New Zealand in late January, Sturgeon said, “in my head and in my heart” she believed this was the right time for her to quit and build a new career outside politics, after eight years as Scotland’s longest-serving First Minister and as the first woman to hold the post.
The leader also broke new ground in her commitments to equality at the top of government when she became the first First Minister in 2014 to ensure her Cabinet was gender balanced.
If you're not up to speed or don't follow politics, here's what you need to know about her.
Sturgeon has been praised for her rational voice in the world of British politics, though she has never been afraid to take on the government in Westminster - particularly over its handling of the Covid pandemic, the campaign for a second referendum and most recently gender recognition - which has lead to more than one controversial moment in her time.
Immediately after the Brexit referendum in 2016, she said she would be seeking a second independence vote, citing Scotland's "strong, unequivocal" vote to remain in the EU. In March 2017 the Scottish Parliament voted in favour of holding a second referendum and in June last year she announced plans to stage a crunch vote on 19 October 2023, pledging to set out "a different and better vision".
She also fell out with her predecessor Alex Salmond after he was accused of a string of sex offences, and referred herself to an independent ministerial ethics body after conceding that she'd spoken to Mr Salmond on the phone about the claims. He was arrested in 2019, but the following year was cleared of 13 charges including attempted rape, when he made a statement to say that the allegations had been made for political purposes, and described them of "deliberate fabrications".
We must demand better for the next generation of feminist leaders.
But Sturgeon accused him of voicing false conspiracy theories and said he was angry as she didn't "collude" with him to make the allegations “go away”.
And more recently she found herself once again in the middle of a discord with Westminster after she branded the UK government's blocking of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Act - which had been approved by the Scottish Parliament - a "full-frontal attack" on Scottish democracy.
The GRA would lower the age that people can apply to change their gender to 16, as well as removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in order to get a gender recognition certificate (GRC). It also reduced the time an applicant needed to live in their new gender - a move welcomed by many equality campaigners, though it sparked backlash over the impact on single-sex spaces.
And let's not forget the time that Sturgeon took a swipe at disgraced ex-prime minister Liz Truss, who lasted just 49 days in government but managed to do more damage in her short time in office than most prime ministers before her. During her leadership campaign, Truss took aim at Sturgeon, claiming that the Scottish First Minister was an "attention seeker". And though the latter didn't initially react to the comments, she did later post on Twitter: "If [Truss] doesn’t mind, I’ll now just wait for whoever will become the 5th PM (so far) during my time as FM."
As news of Ms Truss' departure broke, Sturgeon wrote: “There are no words to describe this utter shambles adequately. It’s beyond hyperbole - & parody."
So, now we're all up to speed, the question is, who will stand in her place? In the race race to replace Sturgeon as leader of the Scottish National Party is Kate Forbes, Ash Regan and Humza Yousaf.
Here's what you need to know about the leadership election, who the candidates are, and what their records on womens' rights are.
Who will replace Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the Scottish National Party?
Kate Forbes
The Cabinet Secretary for Finance (2020–present), Forbes is the first woman to hold the post and in the 2021 vote, she was re-elected with a majority of 15,681 votes, 7,000 more than in the previous election. In short, she has proven quite popular with voters in the past, though obviously only within her current role.
If she was successful in her leadership bid, Forbes would become Scotland’s youngest ever first minister. So far, she has spoken about how the Scottish National party had to put much greater emphasis on slowly persuading unionists to support independence before another referendum, by first using Holyrood’s existing economic powers to prove Scotland can flourish, and said the she supported Sturgeon’s target of banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2032.
However, abortion rights groups feel it it would be a “scary prospect” if Kate Forbes became Scotland’s next leader, as they don't feel that she has taken the issue of abortion rights “seriously enough”, though the candidate has previously said that she would support the abortion rights bill. And this isn't the first time that her controversial views have come up. A devout Christian, Forbes has previously said she would have voted against legalising same-sex marriage, would never have an abortion, and that she thinks it’s wrong to have sex outside of marriage.
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Ash Regan
A Scottish politician who served as Minister for Community Safety from 2018 until 2022, when she stepped down in a protest over the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, Ash Regan has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh Eastern since 2016.
Regan previously joined Women for Independence and was active in the Yes Scotland campaign. In January 2014 she was elected to the national committee for Women for Independence and previously claimed to be “really passionate about Scotland becoming an independent country – I felt the arguments were really strong and I wanted Scotland to have more democratic choice."
In April 2019, Regan was one of 15 SNP politicians who signed a public letter calling on the Scottish government to delay reform to the Gender Reform Act, and later that month, found herself in the middle of controversy when an exchange was leaked between herself and fellow SNP MPs, where they expressed frustration at Nicola Sturgeon and claimed she was “out of step” with the SNP group.
As mentioned above, she resigned in October 2022, citing concerns over the Scottish Government's support for the GRA, and has said that as leader she would abandon the bill and seek instead to introduce new laws to ensure all transgender prisoners go to prisons in accordance with biological sex rather than gender identity. At the time she said that she was not “100 per cent certain that women and girls would not be in danger” if the bill were to be passed.
Humza Yousaf
The only male contender for the leadership, as well as the Humza Haroon Yousaf is a Scottish politician serving as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care since 2021. He is the first South Asian and first Muslim cabinet minister in the Scottish Government, Humza Yousaf currently serves as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, a role he has been in since 2021.
Yousaf has committed to ensuring his Cabinet has an equal balance of men and women as he underlined his record to date on reforms affecting women and, last week, set out a range of new commitments to mark International Women’s Day today, if he becomes first minister.
He has also worked to support the appointment of a Women’s Health Champion and to improve the treatment of women’s health issues such as endometriosis and the menopause, as well as delivering payments for women affected by mesh operations. And he promised to bring in a raft of changes to help women if he succeeds Nicola Sturgeon.
The candidate has also committed to removing abortion from the criminal law, which would introduce abortion on demand, for any reason, up in birth in Scotland – along with legalising sex-selective abortion.
A date for the election has not yet been set.
