Fergus Ewing to stand as an independent

Fergus Ewing MSP has announced that he will stand as an independent candidate for Holyrood next year.

The MSP explained his reasons in a statement released on Friday after months of public discussion over whether he would continue as a politician due to the ongoing differences between him and the SNP leadership. Mr Ewing voted against Lothians MSP Lorna Slater during a vote of no confidence in 2023. After a temporary suspension following his breaking of the whip he was restored to the SNP benches but announced earlier this year he would not stand for the party at the election next year.

He said: “For 26 years I have had the privilege to be the constituency MSP for Inverness and Nairn. I am enormously grateful for having had the opportunity to serve.

“Over that time, I have seen the Scottish Parliament at its best and its worst. I fear in recent years it has been at its worst.       
That is why today I am announcing my decision to stand for the honour of representing the people of Inverness and Nairn for the seventh time as an independent.

“I want to help get the Scottish Parliament back to its best.

“This has not been an easy decision. I have taken it because I love the people of Inverness and Nairn and the people of Scotland more than my party which I have been in for more than half a century.

“The SNP has been part of the fabric of my life for more than half a century. Indeed, I believe there has been a distinctive thread of Ewing running through its plaid for even longer. I hope that is never removed. But fabrics can become worn. I hope the SNP can repair itself and return to the honour and traditions of those who first wove it in a manner that meets Scotland’s real modern needs.”

Mr Ewing continued: “Over the 14 years as a Scottish Government Minister I tried every day, to help ordinary people, and to improve their lives, in each of the portfolios in which I served.      

“But over the past decade, the party seems to have deserted many of the people whose causes we used to champion.

“In oil and gas, farming, fishing, rural Scotland, tourism, small business and many other areas of life. Betraying generations who fought for women’s rights.

“It’s time for Holyrood to live up to the high expectations people rightly held for it, when my mother, Winnie, reconvened our own Parliament in 1999.    

“It came of age some years ago – surely now it’s time for it to grow up. To act with maturity.

“Over the past four years on the backbenches, I sought to offer advice as a critical friend.

“Warning Nicola Sturgeon at the outset, that to enter a pact with the fringe Green Party was a strategic blunder which would only damage us by association.      

“Then we saw the Bute House Agreement, negotiated by the present First Minister, gradually disintegrate as inherent flaws in its promised policies were inevitably exposed as manifestly impracticable and wholly unaffordable.      

“These failures – plus a strange preoccupation with issues regarded as largely irrelevant to most people’ lives – have all cost the SNP much loss of electoral support but also something else which is priceless. Public trust.”

Mr Ewing’s family is an integral part of SNP history. His sister Annabelle is MSP for Cowdenbeath and his late mother Winnie won the Hamilton seat in 1967 which was a pivotal moment for the party. The SNP have selected Emma Roddick who sits as a regional MSP to contest Mr Ewing’s seat in Inverness and Nairn.