Responding to the announcement that Nicola Sturgeon is to stand down at the next election, Highlands and Islands MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston said:
“Nicola Sturgeon has become a deeply divisive figure, both for the country and even within her own party.
“Her deletion of key evidence during the Covid crisis was absolutely shameful, as was her complete indifference to the concerns women and girls raised over her obsessive approach to gender reform.
“Most residents across the Highlands and Islands will remember her as yet another First Minister who failed to deliver on promises to dual the A9, whose inaction only worsened the growing ferries crisis for our island communities, and who allowed key local health services – including vital maternity services - to be run down or lost entirely.
“She was just another SNP central belt politician who neither understood nor cared about the issues that mattered to rural and island communities.
“Her decision to stand down as an MSP is the same as her decision to stand down as First Minister; one forced upon her by her own failures”.
