Nicola Sturgeon resigns as Scotland’s first minister

Bloomberg

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon resigned after more than eight years as head of the country’s government and independence movement in a surprise move that will reverberate across UK politics.
Sturgeon, 52, has headed the semi-autonomous administration in Edinburgh since 2014. The decision to step down comes after an unusually turbulent time for Sturgeon. It leaves her Scottish National Party (SNP) — and the independence campaign — looking for a new figurehead without a clear road map, and after a recent dip in the polls.
At a press conference in Edinburgh, Sturgeon said that she’d always felt that “part of serving well would be to know almost instinctively when the time is right to make way for someone else.”
“In my head and in my heart I know that time is now, that it is right for me, my party and my country,” she said. “It might seem sudden, but I have been wrestling it obviously with oscillating levels of intensity for some weeks.”
While her departure removes a formidable opponent to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives north of the
border, it may end up benefiting Keir Starmer’s opposition Labour Party more. Labour dominated Scottish seats in the Westminster Parliament until the 2015 wipe-out when it lost 40 seats and the SNP swept up 56 of 59 constituencies north of the border.
While the SNP has since fallen away, it still dominates Scottish seats, and Labour — leading the Tories by more than 20 points in recent national polls — will fancy its chances of adding to its single seat north of the border. Sunak must call a general election within the next two years.
Sturgeon’s resignation comes just weeks after the UK government blocked legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament for the first time, rejecting that legislature’s
controversial gender recognition bill.
Sturgeon’s resignation also comes a little over a month before the SNP heads into a special conference to decide how next to pressure the UK to hold another independence referendum. Sturgeon has said she wants to make the next UK general election or the next Scottish Parliamentary election a de facto plebiscite on leaving the UK.
Sturgeon’s party has been split on how to pursue its flagship independence cause in the face of UK opposition to a referendum. The last vote, in September 2014, saw Scots opt to remain in the UK by 55% to 45%. Sturgeon took over as first minister and SNP leader in the wake of that result following Alex Salmond’s resignation.
Her departure means “that the nationalist movement loses its best advocate,” John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said. “This is a reflection of the internal debate about independence in the SNP, rather than the gender recognition stuff. Certainly the next month will be about the internal debate in the nationalist movement about its strategic direction.”
Bookmaker William Hill named Angus Robertson as the immediate favourite to replace Sturgeon.