Kate Forbes, the deputy leader of the SNP, has announced that she is going to not be standing for re-election as a member of the Scottish Parliament next yr. She has given as her reason the will to spend more time along with her family and particularly her three-year-old daughter.
In our cynical world when a politician says they’re stepping down for family reasons it is usually assumed that that’s code for some indiscretion that they’ve committed. But not within the case of Kate Forbes. She really is standing down for the honourable and delightful reason of wanting to spend more time along with her family, even when there could also be other aspects involved as well.
Perhaps she is aware that, despite all of the noise and fuss, there isn’t any likelihood of Scotland becoming independent inside the subsequent 10 years? Perhaps the constraints of being an MSP should not definitely worth the hassle and trouble that she has needed to undergo? Perhaps she realises that her considerable talent will be used to higher effect elsewhere to assist people?
Kate is one of the high-profile Christian politicians within the UK, and her departure from politics (for the moment) raises some significant questions. Not the least of which is whether or not it is feasible for a biblical Christian to stay in any significant role in any major political party within the UK?
When Tim Farron resigned as leader of the not so Liberal Democrats in June 2017, he stated that he was “torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader”. But the treatment he received was mild as compared to that ditched out to Kate Forbes.
When she stood for party leader against Humza Yousaf in 2023, she received a level of private abuse and attack which is unfortunately all too indicative of how illiberal and narrow Scottish civic society has develop into – especially with regards to Christians. This was noticed not only nationally but internationally. As a former moderator of the Free Church of Scotland I used to be asked to comment over and over – for instance on the BBC World Tonight and on Spectator TV.
The journalist Stephen Daisley commends Kate Forbes for refusing to lie or be evasive about her beliefs. She was asked about abortion, gay marriage, sex before marriage and trans rights. She was honest. Something which many individuals admired, however the civic, media and political elites were horrified. How dare anyone not associate with the group think?!
Daisley comments, “Compelled to bear witness, she did so along with her head held high, fighting the great fight and keeping the religion. It is one of the personally admirable and politically suicidal decisions I even have ever seen.”
The orchestrated mob attacks got here even from the highest. John Swinney, the present First Minister made a somewhat shocking personal attack on her in the course of the 2023 leadership race, questioning whether her views on gay marriage made her “appropriate” to be leader of the SNP.
Mr Swinney is a professing Christian and a member of the Church of Scotland. Quite how he squares that with suggesting that somebody who holds the identical view of marriage as Christ shouldn’t be fit to steer the country, is difficult to clarify. More recently he sat silent within the Scottish Parliament when Patrick Harvie and Ross Greer of the Scottish Greens viciously attacked Forbes within the chamber.
There might be some in her party and within the Greens who might be popping the champagne corks just now. The progressives takeover of the SNP will now be accomplished. But it’s difficult to see this as a wise move for them electorally and anything but disastrous for Scotland in the event that they get back into power.
Meanwhile Forbes leaves along with her stock high having been a backbencher, finance minister, finance secretary, leadership candidate, deputy first minister and economy secretary. She is widely thought to be Scotland’s most competent and effective politician and the just one within the SNP who business leaders admired.
Her witness to Christ and look after her family are to be commended. As Daisley points out, “perhaps she truly values motherhood above profession, one among the few remaining mortal sins in a non-judgemental age.”
We pray for her – and her family. And we pray for a Scotland that’s now far poorer due to the lack of its best leader.
David Robertson is the minister of Scots Kirk Presbyterian Church in Newcastle, New South Wales. He blogs at The Wee Flea.
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