Unfazed by the future, Nicola Sturgeon left on her own terms

For those close friends who got a text from Nicola Sturgeon in the hours before she publicly announced her resignation as Scotland’s first minister, it was the timing and not the fact of her departure that came as the almighty shock.

But Sturgeon is a woman who likes to craft her own narrative. For months, the first minister has been buffeted by decisions not of her making – the supreme court ruling that she cannot hold a second independence referendum without Westminster approval, the UK government blocking Holyrood’s gender recognition bill – as domestic headwinds around the NHS, education and transport grew ever more unfavourable.

And so on a lacklustre spring morning in the middle of recess, she seized back control of her own story with a delicately detonated political bombshell. She leaves her party with no obvious successor and those same challenges unresolved – and herself, at the age of 52, as she stressed today, with plenty of road ahead of her.

The superlatives flooded in from supporters and opponents alike, describing Scotland’s first female first minister, who has led her party to political dominance for nearly a decade, as “formidable”, “unparalleled”, “tireless”.

So began the inevitable parsing of her resignation speech, itself praised for its honesty and humility – particularly in contrast to recent UK prime ministerial resignations. Those familiar with Sturgeon’s sensibility were mindful too of recent remarks from former New Zealand premier Jacinda Ardern, someone with whom Sturgeon is known to feel a kinship.

That Sturgeon was ready to leave the role she has occupied since she seamlessly replaced Alex Salmond in 2014 was no secret. For at least 18 months, she has been dropping regular hints and allusions to her post-Holyrood future: telling Vogue in October 2021 that she and her husband, SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, had discussed fostering, and the Guardian in August 2022 that she looked forward to “just not feeling as if you’re on public display all the time”.

All of which seemed jarring for a politician who was also claiming to be up for the fight over a second referendum and the gender bill.

But still the abruptness of the announcement was a surprise, although the explanation given was straightforward enough: with a special conference in March to decide the next steps on independence strategy, she wants to leave the SNP – and her successor – “free to choose” without her.

The immediate speculation was whether Sturgeon was anticipating heavy and humiliating opposition to her preferred option of running a future election as a de facto referendum at the special conference – or what other domestic catastrophes had yet to emerge.

While she insisted at her press conference that the ongoing row over the placement of transgender offenders in women’s prisons was not “the final straw”, this was also the moment when she revealed most emotion, appearing close to tears as she told reporters: “I will always be a voice for inclusion … I will always be a feminist.”

While Sturgeon has been consistently robust in her defence of her reforms, those working closely with her acknowledge how difficult the last few weeks of relentless and increasingly personal criticism have been, overlaying the regular denunciations of her deeply held feminist beliefs during the passage of the gender recognition reform bill through Holyrood, with hundreds of (mainly) female protesters booing her outside the parliament building and wearing T-shirts with the slogan: “Nicola Sturgeon, destroyer of women’s rights.”

“People can only take so much” says one SNP veteran, but this applies as much to her experience leading the country through the pandemic, and the Salmond saga which played out concurrently.

Jeane Freeman, whose friendship with Sturgeon was cemented when she worked as her health secretary during the pandemic, told the Guardian: “It’s inevitable that going through something as relentless and all-consuming takes its toll, as I know personally. I don’t think any of us know the impact it has had on us until we’ve had space and time to reflect on it.”

Sturgeon has also previously discussed her lack of time to fully reflect on the “toxic horribleness”, as she described it last summer, as the Salmond saga – which saw two high-profile investigations into the Scottish government’s handling of harassment complaints made against the former first minister, constant calls for her to quit, and ultimately her being cleared of misleading parliament.

Maybe now the time has come for such reflection for the woman whose mammoth contribution to post-devolution politics has yet to be fully assessed.

Her unerring ability to “speak human” brought her to an audience well beyond Scotland, particularly during her daily Covid briefings, and she remains one of the few politicians in the UK recognised by her first name alone – an electoral boon not enjoyed by any of her potential successors.

While the level of adoration may have calmed since the high point of “Nicola-mania” during the 2015 election campaign when she was regularly mobbed by adoring and sometimes tearful admirers demanding selfies, she remains a popular and trusted figure.

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In her resignation speech she warmly thanked “my SNP family”, the party she joined as a serious-minded 16-year-old in the 1980s, when support for independence was marginal and membership was not about forging a career in politics.

Sturgeon’s leadership style is often criticised for her keeping a tight-knit group around her – unlike Salmond’s unruly court – with regular complaints from both Holyrood and Westminster groups that she fails to engage with the party’s rank and file.

This can partly be explained as personality: she describes herself as naturally reserved and shy, but has spoken out about profoundly personal experiences of miscarriage and menopause, saying she feels an obligation as the first woman in her office to “move the dial a little bit”.

Meanwhile, younger women politicians emerged to salute her as a personal inspiration, with social media this afternoon peppered with testimony – not only from SNP members – from those who say they would not have considered entering public life without her example.

MP Amy Callaghan toppled the former Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson in 2019 and Sturgeon’s delighted fist-pumping reaction, caught unintentionally on camera, went viral at the time. Callaghan, who suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2020, spoke warmly of Sturgeon as “a great source of knowledge and strength during my campaign, and also through my ill-health”.

Those who know Sturgeon well highlight her comments on Wednesday on the polarisation of Scottish politics, and its “brutal” nature – especially for women. They praise her insight in recognising the point where her own leadership, or the perception of it, has itself become a barrier to change.

While she leaves the independence question in deadlock, she insisted her decision to step down was anchored in what was right “for the country, for my party and for the independence cause I have devoted my life to”.

While she indicated she may not stand again for Holyrood at the next Holyrood elections in 2026, she said that her commitment to that cause was unwavering.

“Whenever I do stop being first minister,” Sturgeon told the Guardian in August 2022, “I’m still going to be relatively young. This would not always have been true of me, but a life after politics doesn’t faze me.

“The world is my oyster.”