KATE Forbes was seen as one of the rising stars in the SNP and was frequently touted as a future party leader, but has now announced she will be standing down at the election.
The Deputy First Minister was selected to contest the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency in 2026, but now the party will have to rerun the contest and find a new candidate.
Party members and politicians expressed shock at the news, while opposition politicians used it as an excuse to take shots at the SNP.
Forbes was first elected to Holyrood in 2016, aged 26, having previously worked as an accountant in the banking industry and for former MSP Dave Thompson in the same constituency.
The MSP studied history at Cambridge before completing an MSc in diaspora and migration history at the University of Edinburgh. Born in Dingwall, she spent part of her childhood in India and Glasgow, and attended a Gaelic school.
She quickly rose through the ranks, first as public finance minister in 2018 before becoming Scotland’s first female finance secretary under Nicola Sturgeon in 2020.
Forbes was praised for delivering the budget speech at short notice, taking on the role the night before after her predecessor Derek Mackay was forced to stand down when it emerged he had sent inappropriate messages to a teenager.
During her time as a backbencher, she delivered the first speech in the Holyrood chamber entirely in Gaelic, later becoming the first Cabinet Secretary for the language, alongside responsibilities for the economy, when she was appointed DFM.
She fought the contest while on maternity leave, coming second in the first round of voting with 40.7%, to Yousaf’s 48.2%. The second round saw Yousaf win with 52.1%, compared to Forbes’ 47.9%.
During the campaign, Forbes came under fire for her views on abortion, gay marriage and trans rights. A member of the Free Church of Scotland, she said that having children outside of marriage was “wrong” and that she would not have supported equal marriage as a “matter of conscience”.
Forbes was on maternity leave while the Scottish Parliament voted on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which would have allowed transgender people to self-identify.
In 2019, she joined 15 other SNP politicians in writing an open letter to Sturgeon calling for a delay to the reforms, and would later reiterate her concerns during the leadership campaign.
On independence, she said during the contest that the party should use the Westminster election to win a mandate and demand powers to allow a referendum to go ahead.
After the contest, she told the New Statesman she would have been “haunted” if she had not stayed true to her religious beliefs during the campaign.
Leaving the cabinet in 2023 after Yousaf offered her the rural affairs brief, seen as a major demotion by some, Forbes spent a year on the backbenches.
When Yousaf resigned as first minister, following the collapse of the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens, Forbes took on the deputy first minister role when John Swinney took over leadership of the party and government.
She was given responsibilities for the economy and [[Gaelic]], and last week welcomed the approval of a massive offshore wind farm off the coast of East Lothian.
Forbes had been considered a potential successor to Swinney, prior to her shock announcement and will continue in her MSP role for the next nine months.
She added on social media that despite standing down, she is looking forward to campaigning at the election to “lead Scotland to independence”.
