SNP heading for ‘eternal opposition’ at Holyrood, former MP claims
A senior SNP politician has accused John Swinney, the First Minister, of failing to properly interrogate the reasons for his general election disaster and warned the party is heading for “eternal opposition” at Holyrood.
Joanna Cherry KC, who was among dozens of nationalist parliamentarians to lose their seats earlier this month, also hit out at an internal “culture of hate” within the SNP, claiming bullying was rife and those who sought to debate issues were ostracised.
Ms Cherry, who had a successful legal career before entering politics, said she would now “step back” from the fray and downplayed the prospect of her joining an expected deluge of defeated SNP politicians to attempt comebacks at the 2026 Holyrood election.
The SNP won only nine seats at the election, down from 48 in 2019, in a calamitous reversal of fortunes for a party that had dominated Scottish politics for more than a decade.
Writing her final column in The National, the pro-independence newspaper, Ms Cherry said the SNP hierarchy must “urgently address” what had gone wrong.
However, she said she did not detect “any great appetite on the part of the leadership of the party” to do so “properly”.
‘Utterly delusional’
The First Minister has vowed to learn lessons from the defeat but was accused this week of being “utterly delusional” after claiming voters lacked the correct “appreciation” of his party’s achievements in government.
Ms Cherry said: “The SNP could still play a crucial role in delivering independence for Scotland. However, we cannot fulfil that role until there is a full acknowledgement of what has gone wrong.
“If the SNP cannot govern themselves or the country well then they cannot expect people to trust them to deliver an independent Scotland.
“The party also needs to look at its internal culture and the poison that has been allowed to spread because of the ‘no debate’ mantra that was imported from identity politics and allowed to seep through the party into everything we do.”
Ms Cherry had previously considered swapping Westminster for Holyrood in 2021, but was thwarted by an internal rule change widely seen as an attempt to prevent her from doing so, as she was a critic of then leader Nicola Sturgeon.
She added: “I am of course now free to stand for Holyrood, but eternal opposition is not for me, and opposition is where the SNP are heading at present. I went into elected politics to try and change things, not to carp from the sidelines.
“I could not countenance standing for Holyrood as an SNP candidate unless the party addresses the culture of bullying and harassment of those who dare to put forward ideas or question policy.”
Ms Cherry lost her Edinburgh South West seat after a huge 24.4 point swing from the SNP to Labour in the constituency. Labour won 37 Scottish seats, compared to just one in 2019.
Mr Swinney has admitted his party has “soul searching” to do but has so far failed to publicly set out in detail why he believes his party was rejected in such a spectacular fashion.
Speaking this week, he insisted the SNP remained in a “strong position” and that he intended to “make sure that there is an understanding and an appreciation of the formidable record” of his party before the 2026 election.
‘Years of abuse and harassment’
Annie Wells, the Scottish Tory MSP, said Ms Cherry’s decision to step away from politics was “a damning indictment of the toxic culture that has rotted the SNP to its core”.
She added: “The fact that one of the party’s most prominent politicians has suffered years of abuse and harassment just for daring to question the SNP’s direction on certain issues demonstrates how ugly and unmanageable this civil war has become.”
Neil Gray, the SNP health secretary, paid tribute to Ms Cherry’s record at Westminster and said he hoped she would return to politics.