Edinburgh MSP Joanna Cherry says Nicola Sturgeon an 'amazing' politician who has left SNP with headache

SNP ‘needs a big reset’ says Joanna Cherry

Nicola Sturgeon is an "amazing" politician, but she has left the SNP with a headache over independence and a range of other issues, Edinburgh South West SNP MP Joanna Cherry has said.

The KC and former SNP justice spokesperson at Westminster criticised the decision to go to the Supreme Court over an independence referendum and said the Scottish Government should drop plans for a legal challenge to the UK veto of Holyrood's gender reform legislation. In an online discussion organised by think tank Reform Scotland on the future of the SNP and independence following Ms Sturgeon's resignation, Ms Cherry praised Ms Sturgeon for her calmness and clarity during Covid and redistributing wealth through the Child Payment, but pointed to problems in reducation, the NHS, social care, energy and the deposit return scheme.

She said: "Nicola will be remembered for reversing the vehicle of independence up a blind alley and leaving it without a driver. She is an amazing politician but she has left the party with a headache on the main reason for our existence and with many policy headaches. It won't be an easy task for the new First Minister and the Cabinet he or she appoints."

Edinburgh South West MP Joanna Cherry wants a Citizens Assembly to consider gender reform.

Ms Cherry has been an outspoken critic of the gender reform legislation and argued it would be a mistake to challenge the Section 35 order used by the UK Government to block the Bill passed by the Scottish Parliament. She said: "The Scottish Government needs to stop picking fights with the British government it can't win - it's a pointless exercise. The public don't want us to waste more money on a challenge to this. Whoever becomes leader will have to eat the humble pie on this that Nicola refused to eat. She suggested the issue should instead be referred to a Citizens' Assembly – a group of up to 200 citizens, chosen at random from the general public, but reflecting the spectrum of gender, age, ethnicity and social background, who would hear from experts, campaigners and others, and discuss ways forward.

On the row over leadership candidate Kate Forbes' comment that she would not have voted for same-sex marriage if she had been an MSP at the time, Ms Cherry said she was surprised her answers had been framed as they were. But she said she was also surprised that MSPs who had said they were backing her for leader had now withdrawn their support. "I can't understand why they have chucked her overboard quite so quickly when they must have known what her views were." But she noted Ian Blackford was also a member of the Free Church of Scotland and "it was never suggested he was unsuitable to be leader of the Westminster group".

Ms Cherry also said 32 might be "a bit young" to be First Minister. "What I want to see in the SNP is not a generational shift, but a shift away from the group of people who have run the party for a number of years. We need a big reset." She said leadership hopeful Humza Yousaf would mean "more of the same". "He has skills as a communicator, but we need more than that - I don't think Humza has ever had a job outside politics."

Ms Cherry is backing Edinburgh Eastern MSP Ash Regan, who resigned as a minister over the Gender Reform Bill. "She was a very good minister, she is more on the left of the party, and she showed real courage, integrity and leadership when she resigned her ministerial position."