Nicola Sturgeon’s month-long promotional tour for her memoir Frankly comes to an end this Friday at the Southbank Centre in London, the city, according to one of many carefully placed publication interviews, where she is considering moving to escape the “goldfish bowl scrutiny” of Scotland.
The former first minister’s political memoir has generated a blizzard of headlines since its launch on 12 August. Some were diverting but ultimately inconsequential, like her choice of future base, others rubbed salt in raw wounds, reprising two of the most divisive episodes in the SNP’s recent history – the Scottish government’s investigation into allegations of sexual harassment made against her predecessor Alex Salmond, and her flagship gender recognition law changes.
Her many critics reacted with fury at Sturgeon’s refusal to back down on her position that those changes were weaponised by forces on the far right. Her depiction of her former mentor Salmond, who died last autumn, as a lazy, bullying opportunist was denounced as “cowardly” and “cruel” by his surviving family. Sturgeon herself has faced a fierce online backlash.
But as the hot takes cool, what impact has Sturgeon’s re-emergence had on the party she once lead?
You will find plenty in the SNP who are privately irked by the timing of Frankly’s release, nine months before the Holyrood elections, when she will step down after serving as an MSP since this Scottish parliament’s inception. As one former MP says bluntly: “Rehashing all these things ahead of the election is bad for the party. She could have served her term until 2026, but publishing now only serves herself.”
Others found Frankly an ultimately unsatisfactory read, with too many questions unanswered and a sense that, with so much still in the balance, it was premature to consider this the final word on Sturgeon’s legacy.
While contempt of court laws conveniently precluded Sturgeon addressing the forthcoming trial of her former husband and ex-SNP chief executive Peter Murrell for alleged embezzlement of party funds, there were other marked omissions: how her presidential style of leadership hollowed out the party, her lack of succession planning, as well as the gaping failures of her government to tackle the attainment gap, ferries, drugs deaths, to name a few.
But the response, as with so many things about Sturgeon, and as she acknowledges repeatedly in Frankly, is polarised.
One SNP politician who was inspired to stand by Sturgeon said: “I’m reading it less as political and more personal. Nicola talks in the book about ‘wheesht for independence’ [the idea that any party troubles should be swept under the carpet lest they impede the cause] and she has every right to tell her side of the story.”
SNP HQ may have been “a bit head in hands”, as one former Westminster figure puts it, but Sturgeon remains hugely popular with many members. The fondness was evident at book events, alongside a palpable nostalgia. Sturgeon reminds people of who they were when she was in her prime, blanketed in the optimism of the independence referendum campaign, before Brexit, Covid and the entrenching culture war.
This is shared not only by those of Sturgeon’s generation but younger progressives. “Everyone I know is reading Frankly,” said one twentysomething activist, describing “a sense of loss for the independence movement that felt that much more inclusive and progressive a decade ago”.
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This taps into broader discontent, a month after Mhairi Black, the party’s rising star of the 2015 landslide, quit the party over its current stance on trans rights and Gaza. Another former MP said: “A lot of us are questioning whether the party is a natural fit for us any more. We’d like [current FM] John Swinney to bring out some bold and ambitious policies ahead of the election and I’ve not seen that. We look like a party that’s already given up.”
While the SNP is leading the Holyrood polls this summer, others recognise the manifold challenges facing Swinney ahead of next May: defending a patchy record, the rise of Reform, falling membership and diminishing funds.
And a succession of experienced SNP women are stepping down next May, including the highly rated deputy first minister Kate Forbes. “To lose Kate, a clever woman who could reach out across the entire chamber and to business, is a huge loss,” said one senior MSP, “and it makes things more difficult for the 2026 campaign.”
Despite initial suggestions that Forbes’s exist might move the party leftwards, they counter: “John is a realist and understands the bigger picture. The general mood of the public right now is not leftwing and the rise of Reform shows that.”
After the initial publicity hoopla, on sober reflection many the Guardian spoke to were relieved at Frankly’s lack of seismic revelations. As one veteran activist said: “No one in my circle thinks it will have an impact on the election. There was nothing in it that made you think: ‘We’re going to have to stand on the doorstep and defend this.’”