The 2023 Scottish National Party leadership election took place in February and March 2023 to choose the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) to succeed Nicola Sturgeon, who announced her resignation on 15 February. Nominations closed on 24 February 2023 with three candidates: Kate Forbes, Ash Regan, and Humza Yousaf being presented to the electorate of party members. Yousaf was elected the new leader on 27 March with 48.2% of first preference votes and 52.1% of the vote after third-placed candidate Regan's second preferences were redistributed. Yousaf was elected as the First Minister of Scotland on 28 March 2023.
This was the first contested leadership election in the SNP in nearly twenty years as Sturgeon was elected unopposed in the previous election held in 2014. During the course of the election, both the party's chief executive, Peter Murrell (also Sturgeon's husband), and MSP group media chief, Murray Foote, resigned from their positions on 18 and 17 March, respectively, over inaccurate party's membership numbers being communicated.
Background
In 2004, Alex Salmond became leader of the SNP, having previously led the party from 1990 to 2000. In the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, the SNP won a plurality of votes and seats and Salmond became the first minister of Scotland. In the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, the SNP won a majority of seats on a platform of delivering a referendum on Scottish independence. This referendum took place in 2014, with the question "should Scotland become an independent country?". A majority of voters, 55.3%, answered "no", and Salmond resigned as leader and first minister. His deputy first minister since 2007 and depute leader of the SNP since 2004, Nicola Sturgeon, was elected unopposed as his successor.
Sturgeon led the SNP in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, forming a minority government. She again led the party into the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, which led to a power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens. Over the same period, the party won a majority of seats in each of the 2015, 2017, and 2019 general elections, winning all but three seats in Scotland in the 2015 election. Sturgeon's government advocated for another Scottish independence referendum, but in 2022 the UK Supreme Court ruled they did not have the legal standing to hold one without agreement from Westminster. On 25 May 2022, she became the longest-serving first minister of Scotland since the role was established in 1999, surpassing the record held by Salmond.
On 15 February 2023, Sturgeon announced her intention to stand down as the leader of the SNP and first minister, saying that she would remain in office until a new leader was elected. Sturgeon insisted that her resignation was not due to "short term pressures" but said that the job "takes its toll on you." She said she would remain in office as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) until the next Scottish Parliament election, expected to be held in 2026. On 2 March, John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister, and only person other than Sturgeon to be in Cabinet since the SNP came to power in 2007, also announced that after 16 years he planned to leave Government following the contest. Sturgeon's husband, Peter Murrell, initially remained the SNP's chief executive, although there were calls for him to resign. However, he would subsequently resign on 18 March.
Sturgeon said that the timing of her decision was determined by an impending special SNP conference to decide the party's strategy on independence, which had been due to take place on 19 March 2023. Her proposal for the event was that the next general or Scottish Parliament election should be treated as a de facto referendum on independence. This plan was controversial within the party. Among others, the leader of the SNP in the House of Commons, Stephen Flynn, called for the conference to be postponed following Sturgeon's resignation. The party's national executive committee decided on 16 February 2023 to postpone it.
Sturgeon's resignation came following years during which the party's reputation for discipline had been frayed, two years after the conclusion of an inquiry into the handling of complaints of sexual harassment against her predecessor, of which he was acquitted in court in 2020, after which inquiry Salmond launched the electorally unsuccessful splinter Alba Party. It came during an ongoing dispute over the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and an ongoing fraud investigation into the SNP. It followed two months after a change in leadership at the SNP Westminster group, after Ian Blackford, seen as an ally of Sturgeon, denied being forced out by other MPs, where Alison Thewliss, also seen as an ally of Sturgeon, was defeated.
The Scottish Greens stated they would decide whether to continue the power-sharing agreement with the SNP after the new leader was chosen.
Issues There were three main issues in the leadership campaign: economics, Scottish independence, and gender recognition reform.
Economics Before the leadership election, the SNP government in Scotland and their coalition partners in the Scottish Green Party were criticised by critics on the right of being "anti-growth" with a rejection of new drilling for oil and gas, a bottle recycling scheme, and curbs on advertising alcohol. Meanwhile, critics on the left have accused the government of adopting neoliberal economic policies, selling off green energy resources, and supporting free ports.
Forbes was seen as being the most friendly candidate for business. The power-sharing agreement with the Greens was seen to be under threat from either Forbes or Regan winning. All three candidates expressed concerns over the bottle recycling scheme.
Independence The SNP's strategy for achieving Scottish independence, the central goal of the party, was expected to be one of the main issues in the leadership campaign. There was considerable opposition within the party towards Sturgeon's plan to treat the next UK general election in Scotland as a de facto referendum on independence.
Regan was the most aggressive in her approach. She said she would treat all future elections, to the Scottish or UK Parliaments, as de facto referendums. If parties supporting Scottish independence received more than 50% of the vote in any future election, Regan argues that this would be a mandate to open negotiations with the UK government on Scottish independence, without a standalone referendum being required. Forbes and Yousaf have both focused on making the case for independence and growing support. Forbes also pledged to transfer the power to call a referendum from the UK Parliament to the Scottish Parliament within three months of winning a majority at the next Westminster election, although she did not explain how.
All three candidates said that in the event of a hung Parliament after the 2024 United Kingdom general election, they would be open to supporting a Labour minority government in return for the transfer to the Scottish Parliament of the power to hold a new referendum on independence. Labour leader Keir Starmer said he would not agree to such a deal under any circumstances.
Gender recognition reform As part of the power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens, Sturgeon committed to prioritising reform to gender recognition law, having delayed previous work on the issue due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This resulted in the passage of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill in December 2022, which aimed to make it easier for transgender people to change their legal gender. 54 SNP MSPs voted for the bill, while nine broke the party whip to vote against it, including Ash Regan, and one, Kate Forbes, did not vote. Forbes was on maternity leave but was seen as less supportive of the bill, though remained part of the Government, indicating support, unlike Regan who resigned. Humza Yousaf supported the bill. In response to the bill passing the third reading in Holyrood, the UK government issued a Section 35 order blocking the bill and the Scottish Government has yet to decide its response. The Scottish Government were given until the middle of April to launch a judicial review of the Section 35 order.
Conflict over the bill had the potential to jeopardise the SNP–Green power-sharing agreement, as the Greens were strongly in favour of the bill. Two Green ministers in government said that they would resign from the Scottish Government if the bill is dropped or significantly altered. As the SNP did not have a majority in the Scottish Parliament, the Greens leaving the Government would make it difficult for the SNP to enact any parliamentary business, and could have precipitated a snap election.
After Sturgeon announced her resignation, Regan and the SNP MP Joanna Cherry, also opposed to the bill, argued that former members who had recently left the party should be allowed to rejoin and take part in the leadership vote. The proposal was aimed at involving past members who quit in protest over the bill. The deputy first minister John Swinney said that the proposal was "preposterous" and that the rules were already determined that would only allow current members to vote.
Out for Independence, the SNP's LGBTQ+ wing stated that they were "incredibly disappointed with the way this leadership campaign has been conducted and the tone and language that have been adopted toward the LGBTQ+ community."
Campaign
Nomination period The former leader of the party in the House of Commons, and former party deputy leader, Angus Robertson, was initially seen as the most likely candidate to succeed Sturgeon by the betting markets. However, on 20 February, he announced that he would not be standing, citing his young family as the reason. The deputy first minister John Swinney was initially considered another potential candidate. However, he ruled himself out of the contest on 16 February. It was also reported that Keith Brown and Màiri McAllan were considering entering the race. On 19 February, Brown ruled himself out of the leadership contest, stating "he could better serve the party in his current post" as depute leader. The same day, McAllan also ruled out standing.
With Kate Forbes's campaign announcement on 20 February, there were expected to be just three candidates: Forbes, Ash Regan and Humza Yousaf, the latter two having declared on 18 February. Yousaf was seen as the continuity candidate, supporting the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, but he did not commit to the idea of using the next general election as a de facto referendum. Regan opposed the Gender Recognition Reform bill but supported a more aggressive version of the de facto referendum plan. Forbes, having been on maternity leave, had been absent from these two debates previously, but later declared her opposition to the Gender Recognition Reform bill. Yousaf and Forbes both supported trying to grow support in Scotland for independence rather than the de facto referendum plan. Once all three candidates had declared, Forbes was considered the most likely winner by bookmakers, followed by Yousaf, with Regan thought to be much less likely to win.
After controversy over Forbes's declaration that she would have voted against legalising same-sex marriage, several of her supporters withdrew their endorsements. The social security minister Ben Macpherson said he had been encouraged by members to stand as a fourth candidate, but chose not to. At First Minister's Questions on 23 February, Conservative and Labour politicians criticised Yousaf's governance of the NHS.
Kate Forbes