Sturgeon says she will remain in her role until a successor is in place.
LONDON—
On Wednesday, Scottish government leader Nicola Sturgeon announced her resignation after eight years.
She claimed her surprise choice came “from a place of duty and of love” rather than short-term demands.
“This decision comes from a deeper and longer-term assessment,” Ms. Sturgeon, 52, said at a press conference at Bute House, her official residence in Edinburgh.
“I realize it looks sudden, but I have been fighting with it, with alternating intensities, for several weeks.”
She promised to stay till her replacement is appointed.
The Scottish National Party, Ms. Sturgeon’s party, is the dominant political force in Scotland, but her departure comes at a particularly difficult time for the party, with a conflict over a new gender-change policy and debate within the party about a second referendum on Scottish independence.
Ms. Sturgeon has led the party’s independence campaign since its foundation.
“The cause of independence is so far greater than any one individual,” Ms. Sturgeon said Wednesday.
She said Scotland was “in the final chapter of that journey” and that she had moved the country closer to independence.
Sturgeon has led her party since 2014.
After Scottish voters rejected independence in a referendum, Ms. Sturgeon became Scotland’s longest-serving first minister in 2014.
Ms. Sturgeon told BBC last month that she had “enough in the tank” to lead Scotland and was “nowhere near ready” to resign.
After convicted rapist Isla Bryson was imprisoned in a women’s jail, she became involved in a fight over the Scottish government’s gender self-declaration policy.
Since joining the pro-independence Scottish National Party at 16, Ms. Sturgeon has sought as much power for Scotland as possible. Last year, she revealed plans for a second Scottish independence referendum in October 2023, reviving the subject of whether Scotland will split from Britain.
“Being your first minister has been the privilege of my life,” Ms. Sturgeon said Wednesday.
“Nothing will ever compare.”
