Fergus Ewing: ‘The SNP just is no longer the party for all of Scotland, as it has been for most of my 50 years as a member’ as he announces he is to stand down as SNP MSP at the 2026 Holyrood election

The full statement from Fergus Ewing, Inverness and Nairn MSP - Read the full story here: Fergus Ewing to stand down at the next election as the Inverness and Nairn MSP

It is with great sadness that, after 26 years and six successful election campaigns, I shall not be submitting my name for nomination for the SNP for the Holyrood Elections next year for Inverness and Nairn constituency.

Amongst several reasons, the principal one is that I am afraid that I simply cannot defend the record of the SNP Government to fail to deliver on its long-standing pledges to dual the A9 and A96 - both so vital for my constituency. I have stood in every election on these pledges, and so, as a matter of honour, I simply cannot defend the lack of delivery.

Many supporters in my own constituency and throughout the country have, over the past few years, urged me to stand as an Independent voice in Holyrood. Many across the party divide, which has become far too tribal and divisive, have also asked me to stand as an independent defender of their interests in business, tourism, rural economy, oil and gas, and the wider community.

The key issue for me as a constituency MSP is delivery on the promises both I and my party have made at election after election. Therefore, unless substantial and significant progress is made before next March on both dualling road projects, I may consider standing Independent candidate. I will set out in due course what that progress should reasonably entail.

Suffice to say: Every Highland family worries when a loved one has to travel up or down the A9 or the A96.

Given my loyalty to the party and, more important, the cause of independence over more than half a century, to which I remain wholly committed, it is with great regret that I have concluded I simply cannot defend my party’s indefensible lack of action.

The SNP appears even now to be planning to prepare to ditch its own long-standing pledge to dual the A96, the review of which was a condition of the Bute House agreement, negotiated by the First Minister. That deal was supposed to have been scrapped. But it lingers on.

Some in my patch say to me, that if the current SNP Leadership can ditch the A96 pledge before the election next year, what is to stop them ditching the A9 pledge after it? Or instead, perhaps axe those sections at the northern ends of either project – which just happen to be in the Highlands.

Regarding the A96 pledge, the good people of Nairn still don’t know, fourteen years after it was first made, if their promised by-pass will ever be delivered and if so, when. The Scottish Government have spent nearly an astonishing £100 Million of taxpayer’s money on the A96 dualling - but not one centimetre of tarmac has yet been laid. It’s hard to believe that a Scot invented modern road making.

I have wrestled with my conscience for perhaps too long. I thank all of those who have campaigned with me in all six successful election victories. Many of those activists, are, sadly, now no longer with us. Knowing them well, as I did, in my judgement, they would be birling in their graves if they had seen much of what has happened and been done in the party’s name over the past four years.

If any still loyal SNP members are disappointed by this announcement, I am truly sorry for that. But sadly, the SNP just is no longer the party for all of Scotland, as it has been for most of my 50 years as a member: - the national party.

Instead, it has chosen over the past four years to self-destruct, with its damaging deal with the Greens, its obsession over gender recognition, the ill-fated Deposit Return Scheme, and by turning its back on our hard-working oil and gas workers, our thousands of accommodation providers, tourism enterprises, our food and drink producers, farmers, keepers and land managers, and our fishermen and coastal communities.

Losing 65,000 members, three quarters of our MPs and 20% in our poll ratings should have caused the leadership to change and change radically, but apparently it can’t, or won’t.

All of that said, Scotland’s cause can yet prevail. There must be hope for us to chart our own future in a distinctive way, and there is. The party can change and, in my opinion, must do so. Independence is a cause unwon, but it’s not a lost cause. That is why I am not simply standing down now from the SNP group. I honour my own party membership, which I was born into and which is part of my very soul. That is why I am remaining in the party which I have served for these five decades.

We can again be a truly national party and stand up for all of our people. We can regain the trust of the people that we built up during the successful Salmond years. Over the past four years, the sad reality is we have lost much of that trust and support. The leadership seems still unwilling to accept the reality which is very sad and damaging. It will take many years to build back that trust and confidence.

But we can - provided we show good government with the powers that we have got – we can and must try harder persuade people that our fate and future is, like so many other medium sized nations, best served as an independent country.

My constituents do not want a nest of fearties in their Parliament. They do want a strong independent voice, firm and confident leadership, and direct and purposeful action, frankness and honesty in the face of difficulties, the truth and a huge measure of common sense. That is precisely what I have sought to provide for them.

It is now up to the leadership of the Scottish Government to deliver significant and substantial progress on the implementation of their longest standing pledges - dualled road links for the Highlands. To coin a phrase: Yes they can.

Fergus Ewing MSP,

Inverness and Nairn,

1999 to date.

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