Nicola Sturgeon has said she “takes a fair chunk of responsibility” for the SNP’s election loss last year. The former first minister also warned “care needs to be taken in moving the party away from the position from which it won eight elections under me”.
She also refused to say whether trans rapist Isla Bryson was a man or a woman.
The SNP went from 48 seats in 2019 to nine in last year’s general election. It was the first time voters had gone to the polls since Sturgeon resigned as leader in 2023.
Asked by the Financial Times how much responsibility she took for the result, Sturgeon said: “I take a fair chunk of responsibility. Whether I always sound it or not, I’m somebody who tends to blame myself for things. But the more time that passes, I think it’s harder to keep blaming me for things… There’s some irony: the SNP didn’t lose an election when I was leader, but somehow the first one that they lost when I wasn’t leader was all my fault.”
Sturgeon also warned about the SNP moving to the right and abandoning green policies. Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes narrowly lost the contest to replace Sturgeon and is seen as a frontrunner to succeed John Swinney. This has cause some to worry that the SNP will move right of centre.
Sturgeon said: “I think care needs to be taken in moving the party away from the position from which it won eight elections under me and I can’t remember how many under Alex [Salmond] before me . . . If you want to move it away from that, be careful that you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and that you’ve thought through the electoral consequences.”
Sturgeon faced a backlash when Bryson – who raped two women when living as a man called Adam Graham – was held in a women’s prison. This happened as the SNP Government was trying to make it easier for trans people to switch gender.
Sturgeon refused to say whether Bryson was a man or a woman at the time and doubled down when speaking to the FT: “That person was a rapist.”
The former FM admitted that a second independence referendum is currently “off the radar” but she added that it would happen “within our lifetimes.” She said: in younger age groups, support for independence is 60, 65, 70 per cent. They’re not changing their minds as they get older. The demographics are very firmly in one direction. I do think Scotland will be independent within our lifetimes, absolutely.”
She also accused Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves of being “just so wooden and stilted” but admitted “there is a part of me that wants to see them succeed.”
She said: “There’s something quite depressing about the notion that unless you’re a Boris Johnson-type showman, you can’t be successful in politics. Even as somebody from a different political tradition, there is a part of me that wants to see them succeed… I just think the political climate we live in right now makes that really difficult, that very serious, managerial approach.”
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