Joanna Catherine Cherry (born 18 March 1966) is a Scottish lawyer and former politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Edinburgh South West from 2015 until 2024. As a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), she was the party's Home Affairs and Justice Spokesperson in the House of Commons from 2015 to 2021. She left the SNP in late 2025 after years as an outspoken critic of the party's leadership and direction.
Early life and career Joanna Cherry was born on 18 March 1966 in Edinburgh to Mary Margaret (née Haslette) and Thomas Alastair Cherry. She was educated at Holy Cross primary school, then at St Margaret's Convent School, before studying at the University of Edinburgh. Cherry was brought up in a family that took a close interest in Scottish and Irish history and politics.Cherry, Joanna (2026), Keeping the Dream Alive: An Insider's Account of a Tumultuous Decade in Scottish Politics, Icon Books, London, pp. xv - xxxiv,
Following her graduation, Cherry worked as a research assistant with the Scottish Law Commission (1990) before practising as a solicitor with the Edinburgh legal firm Brodies WS until 1995. She also worked as a part-time tutor in constitutional law, family law and civil court practice at the University of Edinburgh from 1990 to 1996. In 1990, she was a member of the editorial board of the political magazine Radical Scotland.Lawson, Alan (ed.), Radicall Scotland No. 44, April/May 1990, p. 4,
Cherry was admitted as an advocate in 1995, with a particular interest in employment and industrial relations, health and safety, mental health, personal injury and professional negligence.
She served as a Standing Junior Counsel to the Scottish Government from 2003 to 2008, and as an Advocate Depute and Senior Advocate Depute from 2008 until 2011. She was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 2009 (becoming a King's Counsel upon the death of Elizabeth II) and was an advocate with the Arnot Manderson stable within the Faculty of Advocates until her election to parliament.
Cherry set up the "Lawyers for Yes" group, which campaigned for a pro-independence "Yes" vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
Political career
2015–17 Parliament At the 2015 general election, Cherry was elected to Parliament as MP for Edinburgh South West with 43% of the vote and a majority of 8,135. Following her election, Cherry was appointed as the SNP spokesperson for Justice and Home Affairs at Westminster.
In May 2017, Cherry apologised for telling journalists that a nurse, who had told a TV debate audience she had been unable to survive on her salary and had to use food banks, was believed to be the wife of a Conservative councillor. These false claims were retweeted by other SNP politicians, with the nurse experiencing online and offline harassment.
2017–19 Parliament
Cherry was re-elected as MP for Edinburgh South West at the snap 2017 general election with a decreased vote share of 35.6% and a decreased majority of 1,097. Following the election, she came second to Ian Blackford by a few votes to succeed Angus Robertson as SNP Westminster group leader.
In October 2017, she was an observer at the 2017 Catalan independence referendum.
In May 2019, executives from Facebook and Twitter appeared before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which Cherry was a member, and faced accusations over the way they handled abuse and harassment of parliamentarians on social media. Cherry cited several abusive tweets that were not removed swiftly by Twitter. Cherry received a death threat sent via social media, and was given police protection whilst attending her constituency surgery.
In May 2019 it was reported that Cherry had had her parliamentary credit card repeatedly suspended for failing to repay money on time.
On 11 May 2019 it was reported that Cherry was being investigated by the House of Commons over bullying complaints from four former employees. Cherry rejected the allegations, and alleged that they were part of a politically-motivated smear campaign from her opponents in the SNP. One former staff member took the complaint forward, alleging that Cherry condoned bullying by her office manager and partook in bullying behaviour herself. Cherry was exonerated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and given leave to issue a statement to that effect.
In September 2019, Cherry was the leading litigant in the Scottish court case challenging the five-week prorogation of Parliament by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Her case Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland, together with a case brought in England and Wales by Gina Miller, was ultimately successful in the Supreme Court, resulting in the quashing of the prorogation on 24 September 2019.
2019–24 Parliament 2019–21 SNP frontbench At the 2019 general election, Cherry was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 47.6% and an increased majority of 11,982.
In February 2020, Cherry announced that she was seeking nomination from the SNP Edinburgh Central constituency branch to run as the candidate for Edinburgh Central in the Scottish Parliament and would stand down as an MP in the House of Commons if elected. Angus Robertson also announced his intention to seek nomination for the Edinburgh Central constituency. In July 2020, Cherry announced she would not stand in the Scottish Parliament election, as she was not willing to resign as an MP first, which was required by new SNP rules. She stated that the party's conditions for standing as an MSP were unreasonable and made a fair contest involving her impossible.
In January 2021, she supported an amendment to the (devolved) Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 that would have exempted "criticism of matters relating to transgender identity" from violating provisions relating to protected characteristics in the bill. Later that month, she was criticised by SNP colleague Kirsty Blackman after expressing support for Sarah Phillimore, who had been banned from Twitter for allegedly making transphobic and antisemitic statements.
On 1 February 2021, Cherry was sacked from the SNP's front bench by the party leadership. The party's Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: "Team working and cooperation are key to ensure results and this reshuffle will give us a strong team to take us forward", and an SNP spokesman said that she was removed because of unacceptable behaviour.
On 21 February 2021, Cherry was criticised by the Scottish branch of PEN International for threatening defamation action against a man who criticised her on Twitter. After Cherry disputed she had taken legal action, letters from her solicitors on her behalf were published. Jolyon Maugham, with whom she had worked on the legal challenge over Boris Johnson's prorogation of Parliament, criticised her for using legal threats to prevent criticism of her.
On 26 March 2021, Cherry announced that she was stepping back from her public duties for health reasons. On 10 May 2021, following the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, she began a gradual return to her work. On 31 May 2021, she resigned from the SNP national executive committee.
2021–24: Backbench campaigning
In June 2021, she signalled her support for For Women Scotland campaigner Marion Millar, who was charged under the Malicious Communications Act 1988, with a hate-crime aggravation, for allegedly transphobic and homophobic social media posts. Later that month, Cherry announced that she was returning to the bar to defend Millar in court. The case was subsequently dropped by prosecutors.
In July 2022, Cherry was elected as the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, having previously served as the deputy chair. She was covering for Harriet Harman, who temporarily stepped down to chair the Privileges Committee during its investigation into Boris Johnson, and returned to the deputy role after the investigation concluded.
In October 2022, with fellow "gender critical" parliamentarians Rosie Duffield and Anne Jenkin, Baroness Jenkin of Kennington, Cherry set up a cross-party "biology policy unit", "to help ensure policies across the public sector that are based on gender identity theory are documented and scrutinised".
During the 2023 SNP leadership contest, Cherry was the only SNP parliamentarian to endorse Ash Regan, and introduced her at her campaign launch. On 13 February, Cherry called for SNP chief executive Peter Murrell—husband of outgoing party leader Nicola Sturgeon—to step down during the contest. He stepped down on 17 March over a dispute around publication of membership numbers.
In May 2023, The Stand Comedy Club cancelled a proposed event by Cherry, who compared the cancellation to actions by the Stasi. The Stand reversed the cancellation when Cherry threatened to make a legal claim against them for discrimination in respect of her "gender-critical" beliefs. Following her Stand appearance that August, Cherry said that she felt "palpable hostility" from staff working the event, saying "Stand staff saw fit to continue the unlawful harassment of me on account of my sexuality and beliefs". The manager of the event said: "[As] one of only four people she dealt with on the day (only two of them staff of the Stand) I am very surprised at this. It was not raised at the event and cannot imagine what she is talking about."
In July 2023 a 23-year-old woman was tried, accused of sending a threatening electronic message to Cherry. Cherry appeared in court over a tweet that she described as "frightening threats". Her chief of staff, Fraser Thomson, said: "I took it to be a very serious attempt on Joanna Cherry's life". The woman was cleared of threatening her: the judge found reasonable doubt that the tweet "STG I am gonna pop Joanna Cherry", in reply to a newspaper article on her, was grossly offensive, or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.
Relationship with Alex Salmond Cherry has long admired the former SNP leader and first minister Alex Salmond, describing him after her election alongside him as "the person I most admire in my political life by a mile" and has been referred to as a Salmondite. During the accusations and charges of sexual harassment against Salmond, Cherry was described as one of his allies in the party and a critic of then-leader Nicola Sturgeon.
Before his trial, Cherry told Holyrood that "Alex is my friend, and I was brought up to stand by my friends. It's the kind of family I come from. Alex is clear that he's innocent and I respect that". In March 2020, after Salmond was acquitted in court, she called for a public inquiry into the handling of the accusations against him. Later that year she called for him to be reinstated to the SNP, from which he had resigned. In February 2021, she called for the government to release documents which Salmond claimed proved that Sturgeon had been part of a conspiracy against him. In March 2021, when Salmond formed the Alba Party, Cherry denied speculation she would be defecting to join him.
Following Salmond's death in October 2024, Cherry said that inappropriate sexual behaviour Salmond had admitted to was not criminal, and reiterated that he was acquitted of the criminal charges. In 2025, she said she believed there had been a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in relation to him, saying she would publish further information in memoirs she was then writing.
Relationship with Nicola Sturgeon