John Swinney and the SNP will soon be out of government, Joanna Cherry has predicted. 

Writing in The National, the former MP said her party was on course for "another rout at the 2026 Holyrood election."

Ms Cherry lost her Edinburgh South West seat on July 4, with a swing of 9.2% to Labour. The constituency was one of 39 lost by the SNP at the vote. 

READ MORE: Joanna Cherry criticises 'Stalinist' leadership of Nicola Sturgeon

In her column, Ms Cherry said she was "going to take some time away from front-line politics to decide what to do next."

She said she intended to remain a member of the SNP, "but to step back from active involvement in the party a while."

The KC said that "a culture of hate" against those who questioned policy choices and internal governance had "been allowed to flourish in the SNP."

She added that nobody with any authority in the party had ever had the "courage to address it and it has poisoned our discourse and prevented proper debate."

Ms Cherry wrote: "Back in 2014 had I foreseen the level of abuse and harassment I would have to endure as an SNP MP, simply for daring to question the direction the party was taking, I would never have left my legal career to enter elected politics."

She also questioned whether the party was truly addressing the "enormity of what happened to the SNP vote at the General Election."

"On September 18 2014 1.6 million Scots voted for Scotland to become an independent country. On July 4 2024 only 724,758 Scots voted SNP. Less than half of the Yes vote from 2014 and a drop of half a million from the 1,242,380 votes we got at the 2019 General Election.

"The SNP need urgently to address what has gone wrong and what led to this huge drop in our vote, or we will suffer another rout at the 2026 Holyrood election.

"I don’t sense any great appetite on the part of the leadership of the party to do this properly."

Ms Cherry said the cause of Scottish independence "must not be written off and the SNP could still play a crucial role in delivering independence for Scotland."

She added: "However, we cannot fulfil that role until there is a full acknowledgement of what has gone wrong and root and branch reform of the party’s internal governance and policy-making processes.

"My colleagues in government also need to take a long, hard look at the way they govern and embrace change."

Ms Cherry said the party needed "a break with the past and an infusion of fresh talent that brings with it experience from all walks of life rather than more time-served professional politicians."

That comment comes as a number of SNP politicians who lost their seats at Westminster eye up a move to Holyrood. 

READ MORE: Joanna Cherry 'sacked' from SNP front bench in Westminster

The lawyer said that while she was free to stand in 2026, "eternal opposition is not for me, and opposition is where the SNP are heading at present."

"I went into elected politics to try and change things not to carp from the sidelines," she added.

Ms Cherry said she would like to have been part of an SNP government but the party's rules were changed in 2020 to make it hard for the party's politicians to hold dual mandates.

It meant that an MP picked to stand for Holyrood would need to quit their Westminster seat, triggering a by-election and making their staff redundant.

It was widely seen as a ploy to stop Ms Cherry heading to the Scottish Parliament. 

Earlier this week, John Swinney suggested the rule could be looked at again. 

Ms Cherry wrote: "I will be pleased if recent reports are correct, and that petty and unprecedented rule change is consigned to the dustbin of history.

"But without reforming the NEC and some serious changes at the heart of our party that sort of convenient rule tinkering can easily happen again at another time for other reasons."