Joanna Cherry has been done down by the politics of the playground

The most graphic examples of these attitudes have become apparent in the fury and hostility directed at feminists when they have dared to raise concerns about their sex-based rights.

They are often amplified by a cohort of middle-aged male, political savants. It’s as though, never having practised or achieved anything truly radical in their privileged lives, they now feel a desperate compulsion to fix that by choosing the path of least resistance.

By attacking mainly older or middle-aged women or turning up mob-handed at their events to harangue them, they know they’re hardly likely to encounter any retaliation.

Last year, in her final Holyrood speech as First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon said: “When women lift, girls rise.” Responding to this, the SNP MSP, Emma Roddick said that it was these words which had inspired her to become a politician. These sentiments though, must have rung hollow in the ears of Joanna Cherry, a proud lesbian and feminist who, for the previous several years, had endured a vindictive campaign of intimidation and harassment orchestrated from within her own party.

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Following Ms Cherry’s loss of her Edinburgh West constituency at the UK election on July 4, it was hoped by many in the party that she would make plans to run for Holyrood at the 2026 Scottish election. After all, she had proven herself to be the most able and effective of the SNP contingent at Westminster since becoming an MP in 2015. Unlike many of her group colleagues, she had garnered respect for the wider Scottish independence movement in her expert scrutiny of legislation and her tough cross-examinations of Tory ministers in the chamber.

It seems though, that years of bullying by some of her colleagues and several payroll party workers have taken their toll on Ms Cherry. That and the failure of anyone at cabinet level to have publicly supported her.

In what was her final column for the National last week, she made a series of astonishing remarks about her treatment by the SNP, leaving no one in any doubt that she’d had enough and would be stepping away from front-line politics.

Consider these comments and then ask yourself if the SNP, under its current leadership, is a safe place for women to work.

“Unfortunately, a culture of hate against those who dare to disagree has been allowed to flourish in the SNP,” wrote Ms Cherry, “without anyone in authority having the courage to address it and it has poisoned our discourse and prevented proper debate.”

She added that “some people within our movement feel they have licence to attack those with whom they disagree in the most unpleasant terms”.

She said that had she foreseen the level of abuse and harassment she would have to endure, simply for daring to question the direction the party was taking, she would never have left her legal career to enter elected politics.

In what was perhaps the most damning charge levelled at all of Scotland’s self-styled progressive parties, she wrote: “A political party that allows male members to harass and abuse female members, including elected parliamentarians, without any censure whatsoever is not progressive. Those who run the SNP and indeed the Scottish Greens, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats need to understand that men who abuse women and threaten violence against them often act on those threats.”

Ms Cherry made these remarks in the wider context of outlining the challenges the SNP faces if it hopes to remain as Scotland’s party of government after the 2026 Scottish election. They echo those of Kirk Torrance, the digital campaigns guru who masterminded the SNP’s campaigning strategy during its spectacular growth period between 2009 and 2015.

In a newspaper article on Sunday, Mr Torrance indicated that the SNP was facing another electoral disaster in 2026 if it didn’t undertake a clear-out of those he holds responsible for placing the party in electoral jeopardy. He echoed my own stated concerns over the last few years: that so many activists had felt “desperately let down” by the direction and leadership of the SNP. In the weeks running up to the UK election I was hearing from SNP candidates and those from other parties that the numbers of Nationalist doorstep campaigners had noticeably contracted.

Since it became apparent that the party had chosen to embrace one side of the ruinously divisive culture wars, many female activists have deserted the party. I’ve personally spoken to dozens of former SNP campaigners who simply felt they were no longer welcome in the party. They included some who felt genuinely fearful for their physical and mental wellbeing had they stayed in the party.

Nicola Sturgeon said last year: “When women lift, girls rise.” (Image: PA)

Any normal organisation facing such detailed accusations of misogyny and threat would have begun an independent inquiry into its customs and practices long before now. Joanna Cherry and some of those women who have also felt unsafe within the SNP have documented evidence of the threats they’ve encountered.

Ms Cherry, who had been a respected QC before entering politics, has made several complaints about harassment to the party executive. None of them has ever been acted upon. That alone should have triggered an investigation.

The SNP though, is a dysfunctional organisation which, in the Sturgeon/Yousaf/Swinney era has chosen a novel approach to management and planning. While other successful organisations reward excellence and proven records of success, the SNP does the opposite.

In doing so, it has undermined the values of the D’Hondt system of proportional representation which was designed to ensure diversity of representation at Holyrood. Instead, it has been used as a tool of patronage by the SNP.

Its list MSPs, shorn of any direct responsibility to constituents, are chosen on the basis of their absolute loyalty to the mothership. Ability and aptitude is considered secondary to slavish devotion. Too often this has been expressed by targeting individuals known to have fallen out of favour with the leadership.

This isn’t mature government; this is the politics of the school playground.