Years of SNP ‘failures’ led to Fergus Ewing’s refusal to stand for the party leaving it red faced and at risk of losing a safe seat in Inverness and Nairn
Fergus Ewing maintains that a decade of SNP troubles stand behind his decision not to stand for the party in 2026 and instead to run as an independent.
For the party it is a stunning and embarrassing blow because of who Mr Ewing is and what that represents and because his arguments have won a lot of people over.
It could turn out that it is an electoral blow for the SNP, which has lost a lot of support including among pro-independence supporters, as it was a safe seat.
Mr Ewing’s mother Winnie is nothing short of an SNP icon, who served as an MP, MSP and MEP – she also famously reconvened the Scottish Parliament.
He is no doubt who launched the party into its current decline and who did not deliver either on its core mission of independence, or domestic policy success.
“Over the past four years on the backbenches, I sought to offer advice as a critical friend,” he said. “Warning Nicola Sturgeon at the outset, that to enter into a pact with the fringe Green Party was a strategic blunder which would only damage us by association.
“Then we saw the Bute House Agreement, negotiated by the present First Minister [John Swinney], gradually disintegrate as inherent flaws in its promised policies were inevitably exposed as manifestly impracticable and wholly unaffordable.
“These failures, plus a strange preoccupation with issues regarded as largely irrelevant to most people’ lives - have all cost the SNP much loss of electoral support but also something else which is priceless. Public trust.”
Fergus Ewing: ‘Why can’t we work better with each other… that surely is the best way to restore confidence’.
And the state of Scottish democracy seen through the lens of a Holyrood that leaves few voters convinced is another major target of Mr Ewing’s.
He said: “It’s time for Holyrood to live up to the high expectations people rightly held for it, when my mother, Winnie, reconvened our own Parliament in 1999.
“It came of age some years ago - surely now it’s time for it to grow up? To act with maturity.”
He argues that “Scotland is indeed in a state of ‘managed decline’ as Sir Tom Hunter recently said” but “to arrest that decline” the main parties must work more closely together and “replace brittle bickering with reasoned debate.”
Ultimately, Mr Ewing said there is only one solution: “How better to heal division than work together in such a national endeavour?”
Read Fergus Ewing’s full statement as to his reasons for running against his own party:
“For 26 years I have had the privilege to be the constituency MSP for Inverness and Nairn. I am enormously grateful for having had the opportunity to serve.
“Over that time, I have seen the Scottish Parliament at its best and its worst. I fear in recent years it has been at its worst.
“That is why today I am announcing my decision to stand for the honour of representing the people of Inverness for the seventh time as an independent.
“I want to help get the Scottish Parliament back to its best.
“This has not been an easy decision. I have taken it because I love the people of Inverness and the people of Scotland more than my party which I have been in for more than half a century.
“I hope the SNP will change. And once again stand up for the interests of Scotland’s people. So, I have no desire to resign my membership – of nearly half a century. But will continue to work within as a critical friend. Indeed, a true friend cannot be other than that.
“The failures of the SNP to deliver on its long-standing pledges to dual the A9 and A96 are a major part of that. I cannot stand again for the SNP and defend the indefensible.
“I believe the SNP has lost its way and that devolution itself – presently - is letting Scotland’s people down. It doesn’t need to be this way. Holyrood is more fractious and tribal than ever before.
“Too much power rests unchecked in the hands of party leaders, free to choose candidates who will slavishly support them, rather than stand up for the people who sent them to Holyrood. Choosing the pliant over the talented.
“I did not join the SNP half a century ago, in order that the SNP run Scotland. I joined to see Scotland run her own affairs. And deliver a better, fairer country.
“Over the 14 years as a Scottish Government Minister I tried every day, to help ordinary people, and to improve their lives, in each of the portfolios in which I served.
“But over the past decade, the party seems to have deserted many of the people whose causes we used to champion.
“In oil and gas. Farming. Fishing. Rural Scotland. Tourism. Small business and many other areas of life. Betraying generations who fought for women’s rights.
“It’s time for Holyrood to live up to the high expectations people rightly held for it, when my mother, Winnie, reconvened our own Parliament in 1999.
“It came of age some years ago - surely now it’s time for it to grow up? To act with maturity.
“Over the past four years on the backbenches, I sought to offer advice as a critical friend.
Fergus Ewing: ‘The Green party deal did the SNP great damage’.
“Warning Nicola Sturgeon at the outset, that to enter into a pact with the fringe Green Party was a strategic blunder which would only damage us by association.
“Then we saw the Bute House Agreement, negotiated by the present First Minister, gradually disintegrate as inherent flaws in its promised policies were inevitably exposed as manifestly impracticable and wholly unaffordable.
“These failures - plus a strange preoccupation with issues regarded as largely irrelevant to most people’ lives - have all cost the SNP much loss of electoral support but also something else which is priceless. Public trust.
“Scotland is indeed in a state of ‘managed decline’ as Sir Tom Hunter recently said.
“To arrest that decline, what is required, in my view, is for the main parties to work more closely together and replace brittle bickering with reasoned debate and the cross party co-designing of, for example, reform of public services and maximising economic growth and opportunity over the next ten to twenty years.
“Scotland and the UK now face the most serious economic challenges in an unstable world , through absurdly high energy prices threatening industry and staggering levels of National Debt.
“To deal with the magnitude of these looming crisis, and also to see off challenges from fringe parties threatening to win over many “scunnered” by both Labour and SNP Governments, I strongly believe that the main parties need to work together, whether in a grand coalition or a less formal arrangement.
“In each main party there are people of talent and experience and a Cabinet of all of the best people could best serve Scotland.
“At present often we can and do work together on committees in Holyrood; in cross party campaigns and in the constituency.
“I have myself sought to do so on every possible occasion both in Scotland and with many UK ministers and politicians.
“Ordinary people accept that they must work together in their own workplace - with everyone - whether they choose them as friends and allies or not.
“They don’t have a pointless slanging match every Thursday lunchtime as the supposed “high point” of their working week. It’s time for politicians to do what the people customarily do - to work together for the interests of the nation.
“In short: It’s time for Holyrood to grow up. We all can and must rise to this challenge. I do not need to stand again. I want to do so to serve the people of Inverness and Nairn and the people of Scotland.
“I want to use what experience I have and what I have learned to help bring about the kind of Scotland that our people deserve and strive for.
“That’s achievable if we can set aside differences and work for the common weal.
“For those who say this is but a naive dream let me ask this: How with just more of the same, can we hope to turn around the performance of our Parliament and help create the economic success over the next decades that in turn will enable quality public services?
“The same lack of delivery, the same ‘blame game’ of ‘it was nae me’ and lack of humility? How better to heal division than work together in such a national endeavour?
“Such an approach will be liable to attract far more people to want to stand for Parliament
“The most successful Session of our Parliament in the view of many people was that from 2007 to 2011.
“It’s no coincidence that that was the time when there was a minority government, and when cooperation between parties was at its greatest.
“Scotland as a nation faces so many grave challenges. As a nation I believe it is time to remember, united we stand, divided we fall.”
