What does Mhairi Black’s departure mean for the SNP?

Nicola Sturgeon says she is ‘gutted’ at the decision by the SNP Westminster group’s deputy leader, Mhairi Black, to stand down before the next general election. The MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South told the News Agents podcast that the House of Commons is a ‘toxic workplace’ that has taken a toll on her ‘body and mind’. She also says she is ‘just tired’ and wants to spend more time with her partner Katie, whom she married in 2022.

Black joins a raft of SNP MPs, including the former Westminster leader Ian Blackford, who have decided to abandon Westminster politics in recent months. Also in the departure lounge are MPs Peter Grant, Angela Crawley, Stewart Hosie and Douglas Chapman. The Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP Margaret Ferrier also looks to be on the way out, though not by choice. Instead, she had the whip removed for breaking Covid rules during the pandemic and has been suspended by the House of Commons. So all in all, it’s beginning to look like a stampede for the exit. 

Sturgeon, who arguably began the SNP’s parliamentary exodus with her unexpected resignation as First Minister in February, says that she hopes Mhairi Black’s departure from politics is ‘only temporary’. Unkind souls suspect Black may be going before she is pushed out by voters at the next general election and some suspect she may resurface as a candidate for Holyrood in 2026. That is assuming she can withstand the toxicity of Holyrood politics which Sturgeon apparently could not. The former first minister said she was leaving partly because of the ‘brutality’ of Scottish political discourse. 

Labour are jubilant at the announcement of Black’s departure, which they believe is a portent of great gains in the Paisley and Renfrewshire South seat at the next election. A recent Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times indicated that the SNP is on course to lose over half of their 45 seats in 2024 and could end up second to Labour in Scotland. The Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar would be especially pleased to seize back Black’s seat — which she took from the then Labour shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander in 2015. 

When elected, Black was the youngest MP in 350 years at only 20 — and still a student at the University of Glasgow. Black made an immediate impact on Twitter and YouTube with her punchy style and her promotion of LGBTQ+ politics. On talking about the comments made by critics of the SNP’s gender bill, she warned her fans: ‘Ultimately, just don’t be a Jeremy Hunt.’

She raised eyebrows in the party when she appeared with a controversial drag queen, ‘Flowjob’, at a Paisley primary school three years ago. Black also fell out with her gender critical colleague Joanna Cherry KC, the SNP MP for Edinburgh South West, and accused the former SNP leadership candidate Kate Forbes of ‘intolerance’ over her opposition to same-sex marriage during the SNP leadership contest in March. 

But despite her controversial views and her often divisive rhetoric, the SNP leadership regarded Black as a key player, one of the few SNP politicians to have a genuinely youthful following and a wide reach on social media. The SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn chose her as his deputy after Ian Blackford resigned last year. He will no doubt be saddened at the departure of a politician he has often spoken highly of. Humza Yousaf, who calls himself the ‘First Activist’, described Black as a ‘trailblazer’ who ‘inspired a generation’.

Not quite as kindly, the chairman of the Scottish Conservatives Craig Hoy commented: ‘Mhairi Black knows chaos is engulfing her party, which is why they’re fighting like Nats in a sack.’

The SNP has certainly had a turbulent few months. The police probe into the party’s funds is ongoing and there have been a succession of embarrassing policy failures by the Scottish government. The sight of one of the SNP’s youngest and most recognisable MPs departing the stage will only contribute to the sense that the party has lost its way — and is losing stomach for the fight.