For the second time in a month, we experienced a shock resignation on the political scene: Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party announced her return to the back benches after 16 years in office, eight of them as First Minister. There’s a lot to be said of her decision – and we’ll look at ours and others’ reactions below.

But here’s the thing we register immediately and with significant regret: Nicola (widely referred to by her first name) was one of a small group of leaders – all women - who were singled out for their exemplary leadership during the Covid crisis. Not only their success at keeping numbers of deaths and infections relatively low; but in maintaining a good relationship with citizens, earning their trust, and delivering a steady, coherent strategy throughout.

Nicola showed herself to be a leader for the people first, concerned with their experience of struggle, not overly engrossed in the competition to look good on the global stage. And proving how that leads to impressive results all round.

Compare that to the spectacular loss of trust and continuing fall-out from Downing Street’s leadership. The UK story is a long and painful one, driven largely by the personality and limited capacities of a PM that lost his job in the process. The consequences of that period continue to surface: not only domestically but reverberating internationally too (also see South East Asia pivot to China).

Another, maybe even more stellar member of this group of women leaders was former PM of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern who resigned – also suddenly - only a month ago. The similarities in the tone and delivery of their resignation speeches cannot be ignored – both talk feelingly about three related points in what has since been described as a feminine stance. (Since we dwelt on Jacinda Ardern’s resignation four weeks ago we’ll focus on the particulars of Nicola Sturgeon’s today).

Firstly, the role that intuition, emotions, love as well as duty played in Sturgeon’s decision:

However, since my very first moments in the job, I have believed that part of serving well would be to know almost instinctively when the time is right to make way for someone else. And when that time came, to have the courage to do so... In my head and in my heart, I know that time is now. That it is right for me, for my party, and for the country …my decision comes from a place of duty and of love

Secondly, the human toll of the job she is leaving:

There is virtually no privacy. Even ordinary stuff that most people take for granted, like going for a coffee with friends or for a walk on your own becomes very difficult. And the nature and form of modern political discourse means that there is a much greater intensity – dare I say it? – brutality to life as a politician than in years gone by. All in all, and actually for a long time without being apparent, it takes its toll on you and on those around you.

But thirdly, less reported, Nicola dwells on a wider dynamic within society for any political movement aiming to win. Her assessment of herself as no longer the right leader to lead the party to victory, is not proposed as a question of merit, but as a judgement on the constellation of elements. Both Nicola and Jacinda describe ‘getting out of the way’ of their political projects – while, at the same time, not abandoning the cause.

For those less familiar with what is known as the Yes movement in Scotland, Nicola became First Minister soon after the narrow failure of the Scottish National Party (SNP) to win a referendum on independence in 2014, the party leader being Alex Salmond. Scotland has a devolved national parliament, whose members are elected – unlike the rest of the UK – by proportional representation. The SNP won its first overall majority in 2011, and have continued in government until now, where they are currently in a governing pact with the Scottish Greens.

In her resignation speech, Sturgeon refers obliquely to a number of difficult, recent issues that others have suggested prompted her to go - a charge she pre-emptively denied. These issues might include the decision of the Scottish government to grant the right to any person 16 and over to change their official gender without the need to have medical back up (ref). (The same decision, we might note, that caused no consternation in Belgium, Denmark, or Germany when it was taken there). Another might be an investigation into the finances of the SNP that has yet to report on its findings. There are many more issues covered by the press with a variety of frames in the days since - and no doubt will continue to be explored.

More broadly, the issue of a strategy for achieving independence has been under scrutiny for some time. Nicola’s decision to take the UK government to the Supreme Court to fight for the constitutional right of a sovereign state to hold a second referendum was considered risky. When it failed, her critics saw that as a failure of judgement, robbing the movement of confidence and status.

The current strategy, promoted by Sturgeon— treating the next UK general election as a de facto vote on independence—also has its detractors from within the party and without. There’s an understandable fear that some unionists, who still rate her as the best leader for Scotland, will be forced to vote for another party. This could rob the SNP of the majority of Westminster seats it needs to demonstrate Scotland’s desire for a different future.

But it is the way that these separate issues impinge on each other, with Nicola as an inevitable focal point, that has been a big part of why she decided to step away. In her words:

… I feel more and more each day now that the fixed opinions people increasingly have about me – as I say, some fair, others little more than caricature – are being used as barriers to reasoned debate in our country. Statements and decisions that should not be controversial at all quickly become so. Issues that are controversial end up almost irrationally so. Too often I see issues presented and as a result viewed not on their own merits, but through the prism of what I think and what people think about me. I’ve always been of the belief that no one individual should be dominant in any system for too long.

Later she says:

…the cause of independence is so much bigger than any one individual. All of us who believe in it contribute in different ways at different stages of our lives. Since I was 16, I have contributed as an activist, a campaigner, and a leader. And so now, as we look to what I firmly believe is the final stage in Scotland’s journey to independence, albeit a hard one, I hope to use all the experience and perspective I’ve gathered over these years to help get us there.

Within a more wholistic, or maybe feminine perspective, this might be seen as not giving up on leadership, but relocating it. Instead of leading from the front, she is proposing to lead from behind. From there, she can shift her familiar call to ‘follow me’ – a stance which invites an assessment of her personal character and motivations – towards a commitment to creating the enabling conditions for more people to become response-able for the lives they might lead.

While some might read this shift as giving up on her own responsibility, Nicola - and Jacinda too - seem to be pointing clearly at a political culture in which leading from the front inevitably leads to exhaustion. As we said in our editorial a fortnight ago, burn-out is a function of our politics-as-usual: one that prioritises competition between parties, expecting division to be the terrain on which every politician has to perform. But very little can be achieved when roughly half the electorate is invested in the failure of the other half. More from Nicola:

We must reach across the divide in Scottish politics. And my judgment now is that a new leader will be better able to do this. Someone about whom the mind of almost everyone in the country is not already made up, for better or worse, someone who is not subject to quite the same polarised opinions, fear or unfair as I know.

But while it’s easy to hold that view in the abstract, it is much harder to live by it. With this decision, I am trying to do so. Indeed, if all parties were to take this opportunity to depolarise public debate just a bit, to focus more on issues than on personalities and to reset the tone and the tenor of our discourse, then this decision – right for me and I believe for my party and the country – may also prove to be good for our politics. I certainly live in hope.

Her final words stayed true with this more feminine style of leadership by naming her lifelong commitment to

..improve the life chances of care experienced by young people and ensure they grow up, nurtured and loved.”

For many, Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation will signal the end of an Independence strategy that relied heavily on the character of her leadership for the last eight years (longer than any Scottish FM to date. Her ability to hold tensions— between modelling a trustworthy government by familiar means and, at the same time, having enough hutzpah to threaten a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI, like Rhodesia in 1965)—is much better than her predecessor Salmond. She was the one that many were hoping could pull them across the line; those voters may now feel abandoned.

On the other hand, the decisiveness and emotional clarity of her decision, coming only two weeks after the same from Jacinda Ardern could have unexpected results. Might this trigger a greater disillusion with personality driven, party politics overall? And might this oblige the Scottish people to look elsewhere for their resources and strategy for Independence?

Where are the opportunities for wider, community led conversations between the many different perspectives on the future? A grassroots development that might create a deeper legitimacy – and unstoppable call - for constitutional reform from the ground up? Not a protest movement, but a wholistic, land, community and nature aligned movement, of a kind that is so often the stronghold of women. We would not be surprised to find both Nicola Sturgeon and Jacinda Ardern actively involved in this kind of work some time soon.

Alternative Editorial: Is Politics More Broken Than Ever?