The Irish Times view on the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s retirement announcement has come as a shock to the British political system and a deep disappointment to her allies. She was the most popular and respected senior politician in the UK in recent years, even if her poll ratings had suffered due to recent controversies.

Sturgeon succeeded Alex Salmond as first minister in 2014 after her Scottish National Party (SNP) failed in its first referendum bid to take Scotland out of the UK. She will be a hard act to follow. Her calm, authoritative management of the Covid crisis was a marked contrast to that of Boris Johnson. Her steady, moderate but robust leadership has significantly broadened her party’s appeal and standing, and her departure will inevitably raise questions about the viability of her party’s independence project.

Sturgeon couched her announcement in language echoing that of New Zealand’s former prime minister Jacinda Ardern in her own recent unexpected resignation. Ardern said that she no longer had " enough in the tank” to fulfil the responsibilities of office. Sturgeon, who spoke of duty to herself, her family, her party and the country, said the job could only be done for so long. In her case it is “in danger of becoming too long”.

But she also acknowledged, in a candid admission unusual for a politician, that if she remained in the job, her divisiveness as a figure could become an obstacle to support across the political divide for independence. The cause was more important than any one individual.

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In a month the SNP is due to convene to debate her hope to use the 2024 general election as a de facto referendum on independence, a strategy that has divided her party. While the Conservative government continues to refuse to contemplate another poll on independence, or any constitutional path to independence, some SNP supporters fear that equating a vote for the party at a general election with support for independence may jeopardise its hoped-for majority.

Sturgeon accepts that her strategy is not fully endorsed, and that it would be wrong for the party to consider it without knowing her intentions. She wants her party to be free “to choose the path that it believes to be the right one.”

But she insisted: “I firmly believe that my successor will lead Scotland to independence,” and that there is evidence now of a clear majority. She would continue to work for the cause.

The resignation may also reshape the UK political landscape. Labour’s hopes that it can re-establish its Scottish predominance, vital to taking back power at Westminster, will have been given a boost.

As one of the party’s senior figures said yesterday in a backhanded compliment, “It’s good for us. The biggest impediment to us turning it around in Scotland was Nicola Sturgeon”.