• Keeping the Dream Alive: An Insider’s Account of a Tumultuous Decade in Scottish Politics, Joanna Cherry, Icon Books, April 2026

• Cherry and others v Advocate General for Scotland, UK Supreme Court case (heard with R (on the application of Miller) v The Prime Minister), judgment and background information, 24 September 2019

• YouTube video of Baroness Hale’s judgment summary

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Intro: [00:00:00] You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm.

Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, parliament itself. I’m Ruth Fox.

Mark D’Arcy: And I’m Mark D’Arcy.

Ruth Fox: In this special episode, we speak to former SNP MP Joanna Cherry about her book “Keeping the Dream Alive”. It charts her political journey through some of the defining controversies of recent years, including Brexit, gender identity, the campaign for a future Scottish independence referendum, as well as internal battles within the SNP.

Mark D’Arcy: While other accounts of those events are doubtless available, Jo Cherry sets out her own perspective on her disagreements with the former First Minister and party leader Nicola Sturgeon, and reflects on the pivotal legal challenge she helped bring about that prevented [00:01:00] Boris Johnson from proroguing Parliament at the height of the Brexit crisis.

Ruth Fox: So, Jo, welcome to the pod. Can we start with your arrival at Westminster as part of that wave of 56 SNP MPs who came down to London in 2015, after all-but-eradicating the other parties in Scotland. What was it like? What were your impressions?

Joanna Cherry: Well, I’d always been a follower of Westminster, although perhaps less so in the decade or so before I got elected because the focus was very much on the Scottish Parliament in Scotland. But I’d always been interested in politics. When I was a wee girl growing up, I wanted to be an MP and then life took over and I got involved in my legal career. So it was very exciting for me, arriving at Westminster. The success of the SNP was just unprecedented. And when we got there, there was an awful lot of excitement [00:02:00] around our arrival. And of course we became the third party and the poor old Liberal Democrats got evicted from the rooms they’d occupied for over a hundred years. And I can tell you, they were pretty reluctant to leave. And there was some ill feeling, about some nastiness that had taken place towards Charles Kennedy during the election campaign, which, knowing what I know now, I suspect was well founded, I’m afraid to say. And the Labour Party were very angry because they felt that we had taken their seats. In fact, I once heard Dennis Skinner point at one of my colleagues and say to another colleague, “That’s the wee lassie who stole Jimmy’s seat.” So Labour very much had a sense that they would always be the majority party in Scotland, as they had been for so long. So there was a bit of friction there initially. I was just very excited to be in the Chamber. And because we’d become the third party and I was appointed our Justice and Home Affairs spokesperson, I had to make my maiden speech from the front bench following on Theresa [00:03:00] May and Yvette Cooper, which was quite nerve wracking. Although I think, as I say in my book, anyone who’s appeared in the bearpit at the Scottish Criminal Appeal Court won’t be intimidated by much. And I quite took to the Chamber at Westminster. I enjoyed it. It was a very, very exciting time. I suppose as time went by, some of the rivalries with the Labour Party broke down and I had some very good working relationships with people in the Labour Party. And I realised pretty early on, if you want to get things done in politics, you have to be prepared to work cross-party. And at the time I got elected, one of the first things I did was to announce that the SNP would play a leading role in the cross-party campaign to save the Human Rights Act. That was very much the focus of those of us interested in constitutional law and constitutional politics at that stage. And of course, the Brexit vote came along and it became more of a focus on leaving the European Union. [00:04:00] It’s very fashionable in Scotland, particularly on the nationalist left, to decry Westminster. And it clearly has its faults, but I actually say in my book, I think the Scottish Parliament could learn a lot from Westminster. The standard of debate is much higher in the debating chamber. There’s far more room at Westminster for a difference of opinion within the parties. I think the SNP could really learn from the way that the Labour Party and Tories conduct themselves where they are broader churches than the SNP has become, certainly in recent years. And I also think the committee system at Westminster works better than it does at Holyrood, it scrutinises the Government more effectively because the chairs are elected rather than just put in place by a party fix, which is what happens at Holyrood. They changed the system to have elections, but it was still done by a way of a party fix.

Mark D’Arcy: When you arrived though, were you expecting to be there for years and years, or were you expecting to be catapulted back once independence was achieved? Because at [00:05:00] that point there was a huge kind of “the future belongs to us” narrative with the SNP.

Joanna Cherry: There was. We specifically stood on a platform that we accepted that we’d lost the referendum, and we were looking for more powers for Scotland and to give Scotland a stronger voice at Westminster. But when so many of us got elected, it became very clear that the issue of independence wasn’t going to go away. So at that stage, I wasn’t expecting to be there for years and years. I wasn’t expecting the Brexit vote at that stage to go in favour of Brexit. I didn’t think there would be a snap election in 2017, but I thought I would maybe be in Westminster for a term and the SNP would find a way to use the nearly 50% support we had at that election to leverage a second vote on independence. One of the reasons I’ve written my book, my memoir of the last 10 years, is to explain why that didn’t happen.

Mark D’Arcy: Yes. Because that was one of the distinct themes that runs through your book, which is that you had [00:06:00] ideas about how that could happen, and the party leadership back in Holyrood really wasn’t that interested in your ideas. They had their strategy, oh, that was it, no one else really needed to contribute.

Joanna Cherry: I wouldn’t even dignify what they had as a strategy. They banged their – Nicola Sturgeon banged her head against a brick wall on independence for nearly a decade. So in 2011, when Alex Salmond won an outright majority at Holyrood, he negotiated with David Cameron and got the right to hold an independence referendum by way of a section 30 order under the Scotland Act, devolving the power to Holyrood temporarily to hold this referendum, giving Holyrood the power to do that. Now, the reason that David Cameron agreed to that was partly as a result of recognising the democratic mandate, partly as a result of Alex Salmond’s statecraft, but also because nobody thought we would win. And then of course, we came quite close to winning, much closer to winning than the Westminster establishment had expected. [00:07:00] And so it was perfectly obvious that they were going to go out of their way not to give us another section 30 order and not to give us another Westminster-sanctioned referendum. But what the SNP did, and particularly Nicola Sturgeon, I don’t mean this personally, but when you’re talking about the SNP, under her leadership, it was her way or the highway. So it was her repeatedly making speeches that a section 30 order was the gold standard, thereby embedding in the heads of people at home in the United Kingdom, and abroad in the European Union, that the only way Scotland could become independent was by way of a section 30 backed referendum. Now, section 30 is a creature of the devolved settlement, which at that stage was barely 25 years old. How can it be that the 300-plus-year-old union between Scotland and England can only be brought to an end as a result of a mechanism that’s only been created within the last three decades? It just doesn’t really make any sense from a constitutional perspective. And I felt it was [00:08:00] really reversing our strategy up a blind alley to insist that that was the only way it could happen. And I wasn’t the only person saying this. There were other people behind the scenes, both parliamentarians and activists, arguing for a plan B, a different way of showing that the majority of people now wanted independence.

Ruth Fox: And, Jo, what would that plan B then, from your perspective look like? What would you have done differently?

Joanna Cherry: Well, one of the things I thought there was, you know, legal opinion in Scotland was split as to whether, notwithstanding the reservations in the Scotland Act, you could craft a Bill to hold some kind of second referendum which would be competent, and pilot it through Holyrood, and then defend it in the Supreme Court when the British Government challenged it. And that was the view of quite a few of us. Others disagreed. What Nicola Sturgeon did was, she, the Lord Advocate, who she appointed, didn’t agree with that viewpoint. And so instead they went to the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to [00:09:00] answer the question and they lost and they shut down an avenue without anything to show for it. Whereas if you’d followed my strategy, you would’ve had the whole weight of the Scottish Parliament behind you. And even though the Supreme Court might have found against you in law, you would’ve had a political victory. So I think that was a really bad move. But I and others argued that if Westminster wouldn’t give us a referendum and if we couldn’t hold one ourselves, you could treat an election as a de facto referendum. But you’d have to do that in the right conditions. Now, Nicola Sturgeon announced that the 2024 election was going to be a de facto referendum at a time when it was clear the SNP were going to lose seats at that election. I don’t think any of us realised quite how badly we were going to do, but she did it, basically, because her back was against the wall and she’d run out of road to kick the can down. So it was strategically utterly inept. And this was my beef from very early on, why I became a persistent [00:10:00] critic of the leadership, because I felt that they were strategically inept. Such strategy as they had was very, very limited. And they didn’t really understand how to play the game of statecraft. History will show that repeated opportunities to advance the cause of Scottish independence were squandered over the last decade. The Brexit vote, the Johnson premiership, the aftermath of the prorogation vote, the disaster of Liz Truss, the terrible disappointment that the Labour government has been so far: all these things have been squandered because the SNP hasn’t had a proper strategy.

Mark D’Arcy: We’ll come back in a minute to the ideas you have for what the SNP should do now. But meanwhile, at Westminster, you were emerging as one of the breakout stars of the SNP contingent, and as well as attracting admiring attention, that also seemed to create a bit of jealousy, a bit of resentment, and possibly the beady eye of the Edinburgh leadership fell upon you as [00:11:00] well.

Joanna Cherry: Well, yes. I mean that’s kind of you to say that, but I think it did, because I and many others in the 56 felt from quite early on that we were lacking in a strategic approach to the power we had as a third party. And we didn’t feel that we were well led by Angus Robertson. And just before Theresa May announced her snap general election in 2017, Alex Salmond and I had been plotting with other members of the group to replace Angus as the leader, either with myself or Alex Salmond. Then of course, the snap election happened and we lost 21 of our 56 seats, including Alex and including Angus. So there was a leadership election and ultimately it was really, it was between myself and Ian Blackford, and I lost by one vote, and that was notwithstanding a very unpleasant campaign of briefing against me by people close to Sturgeon and Blackford. And I think it really freaked them out that notwithstanding all the nasty briefing [00:12:00] against me, I still nearly beat him and he only won by one vote. And so I think from that moment onwards, my card was marked and they saw me as a threat. And it didn’t help that as I became more prominent during the Brexit years, particularly after the prorogation, I was very much touted in Scotland as a future leader of the party. And I say in the book that I did discuss that with Alex Salmond, but I never had any plans for a leadership bid because by the time I was being touted as a leader of the party, so much of what I had seen going on behind the scenes made me think that I wouldn’t want to lead the party.

Ruth Fox: Can we just backtrack a little bit more then, Joanna? Because what drew you to the SNP and what was that party like when you joined? You were attracted by the idea of independence, clearly. So just unpack why. Then, you were pretty early on sort of talent spotted by Alex Salmond, you were a protege and adviser, became a friend of [00:13:00] his. So you were very fully embedded in the party in that sense, but then your views towards the party evolved and changed under the new leadership. So what was it like at the beginning and what did that change then look like?

Joanna Cherry: Well, I grew up in a house where my mum’s Irish and my dad’s Scottish, although he grew up and was educated in London and Oxford, but my dad was always a Scottish nationalist and my mum was always an Irish nationalist. So I grew up in a household very much where we talked about Scottish and Irish politics and Scottish and Irish history and culture the whole time. And my mum used to always say she tried very hard not to bring her daughters up to be raging Irish nationalists, and they turned out to be raging Scottish nationalists. When I was a wee girl, my dad was a member of the party. In my teens, along with Ian Blackford and John Swinney, I set up the youth wing of the party, the Young Scottish Nationalists, in Edinburgh. And then after the SNP’s heyday in the seventies, the SNP moved to the right in the eighties [00:14:00] and expelled a number of left-wing members, including Alex Salmond at that stage. And I was pretty disgusted, so I discontinued my membership. I actually became a member of the Labour Party for about a decade during the Thatcher years. And then I became very disillusioned with the Labour Party. And I wasn’t a member of anything until I rejoined the SNP in 2008. And I wasn’t very active at that time, but it was really the referendum that made me active. And during the referendum, I didn’t campaign so much with the SNP, but I set up a group called “Lawyers for Yes”. And that’s how I came to Alex Salmond’s attention. So really what brought me into their independence referendum campaign was idealism, I am an idealist, and I suppose if I was honest, I’d say I’m a bit of a romantic nationalist as well. My nationalism is not anti English, but it’s rooted in the view that Scotland is an ancient nation state and could do better on her own two feet rather than [00:15:00] in an unequal union with England, which is so much of a bigger country. So that’s really where I’m coming from, and I remain of that view, but I have become deeply disillusioned with the Scottish National Party, and in fact I’m no longer a member.

Mark D’Arcy: There were some pretty disillusioning things that happened to you quite early on when you were running for Edinburgh South West. You seem to have had some pretty nasty altercations, and I’m not sure quite what the right word would be, with some of your party members. There was a quite hostile reception from people right at the start of your parliamentary career.

Joanna Cherry: Well, yes. One of the reasons I wrote my book was I thought my experience as somebody who came into elected politics in middle age, when I was 49, when I got elected in 2015, I had a very successful career at the bar. I had taken silk in 2009. I worked in an atmosphere where generally people treated each other with respect, an adversarial atmosphere at the bar, but a collegiate atmosphere where people treated each other with respect. And yes, I’d come across a bit of misogyny and sexism at the bar, but it was as [00:16:00] nothing to what I encountered within the SNP and in politics as a whole. And I think from an early state, there were a number of men in the party who really disliked me because I was a middle class educated woman who was articulate and very much independent minded and wouldn’t be bullied, and stood up to bullies. And I think that was a very early pattern for me in the party. My life was made very unpleasant by two grumpy old men in my constituency who really tried to undermine me when I was elected as an MP. And it was a real battle for me to kind of establish my presence in the constituency. But, I think I did, Edinburgh South West was previously Alistair Darling’s seat. It’s gone back to Labour now. It was not a natural SNP seat. And I think until the 2024 election, when the SNP had become very toxic, particularly in Edinburgh, I had a lot of support in the [00:17:00] constituency. And in the 2024 election when I was out knocking doors, lots of people said to me that if I’d stood as an independent, they would’ve voted for me, but they would not vote for the SNP because they were so disgusted with some of the party’s internal scandals and the policy failures at Holyrood.

Mark D’Arcy: You mentioned it earlier, your real leap into prominence nationally. You were an established figure in Westminster and as a player, the third party spokesperson on justice issues. But what really rocket boosted your profile in Westminster was the action that you led to overturn Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament in 2019. You remember that interval where he was trying to suspend Parliament to get it out of the way while he negotiated his Brexit deal and enacted it. Talk us through that because that was a quite extraordinary thing. Normally the courts don’t get involved in the internal workings of Parliament, but you managed to get them to change that attitude.

Joanna Cherry: Yes, I’m very proud of that. I’ve always been very interested in constitutional law and I’m very [00:18:00] proud that now my name is on probably the most important constitutional law case in the UK for the last 100 years. But basically at that time I was working quite closely with Jolyon Maugham who runs the Good Law Project. We don’t work closely together any longer because we’ve taken different sides on the debate about self-ID of sex. But Jolyon and I anticipated that Boris Johnson was going to prorogue Parliament, and I think a lot of people did, because it had been talked about during the Tory leadership campaign. And we had decided to litigate in Scotland because we felt the Scottish courts were more likely to be adventurous constitutionally on this particular issue because there had been a lot of backlash against the English judiciary and some of the other Brexit litigation, but there wasn’t the same ill feeling in Scotland. Of course, Scotland had largely voted to remain. Also, the Scottish courts don’t shut down over the summer, they were open. Sometimes it can be a bit cheaper to litigate in Scotland. So for a number of tactical [00:19:00] reasons, we decided to raise proceedings in Scotland. And we lost at first instance, but then we won in the Inner House of the Court of Session, which is the Scottish equivalent of England’s Court of Appeal. What the judge has said, and I’m quoting here from Lord Drummond Young’s opinion, “The courts cannot subject the actings of the executive to political scrutiny, but they can and should ensure that the body charged with performing that task, Parliament, is able to do so.” And that’s what the case was really all about. Boris Johnson had shut down Parliament because he didn’t like the fact that he didn’t have a majority and that Parliament was frustrating his attempts to have a no-deal Brexit or a hard Brexit. So he basically shut down democracy because it didn’t suit him. I always thought we’d win in the Supreme Court. I didn’t think we’d win unanimously. That was extraordinary. But I was confident we’d win. And of course a lot of English commentators were confident we were going to lose because the English case, Gina Miller had lost in the [00:20:00] High Court. But I felt very vindicated by that victory and very proud of it. Still am very proud of it.

Mark D’Arcy: What was that moment like?

Joanna Cherry: Oh, it was incredible. It’s hard to describe. It was so exciting. And it was so satisfying. It was a cross-party thing. Yes, I was the lead litigant. But in fairness to Jolyon, with whom I now have very strong disagreement, he provided us with an indemnity. I didn’t want to lose my house, I’m not a wealthy woman, if we lost the case. Jolyon provided us with an indemnity and I put together a cross-party group, I encouraged lots of my SNP colleagues. Some joined, some didn’t, but there were Labour MPs, Lib Dem, there were people from the House of Lords. I think there were something like 72 petitioners in our Scottish judicial review. So it was a real cross-party triumph. But I was very proud that I’d led it as a Scottish Nationalist because much as I want to see independent Parliament in [00:21:00] Edinburgh, for so long as Scotland’s part of the Union, I want to help Westminster work well. And so to my mind, in the mind of my adviser, Fraser Thompson, we really thought this was a great opportunity for the SNP to capitalise on the victory. And behind the scenes we were trying to get Ian Blackford and others, because we were convinced we were going to win, to have some sort of strategy for getting rid of Johnson on the back of it. And they just, they weren’t interested in the strategy. They wanted to take the glory of the victory. And incidentally, when I first got involved in the case, Sturgeon and Blackford weren’t interested. It was only when it looked like I was going to win that they suddenly made it kind of an SNP victory. But they didn’t capitalise it. We had Johnson on the ropes, but they didn’t capitalise on it. And then a couple of months later, we helped facilitate a general election, which was obviously going to result in his landslide in England and was not in Scotland’s interests. We held the balance of power in that Parliament as Theresa May’s majority disappeared and [00:22:00] Boris was finding it so hard to put things together. We had 35 MPs. I do not understand why the SNP leadership never went to Theresa May, for example, and said, look, we’ll support your soft Brexit on condition that you devolve to the Scottish Parliament the right to decide when the next independence referendum is. That’s what I would’ve done if I was the Westminster leader, because the People’s Vote campaign was not really coming to anything. It was clear that we were very going to Brexit. It was in the interest of Scotland for there to be as soft a Brexit as possible, particularly for those of us who want an independent Scotland, because the closer England stayed to the customs union and the single market, the easier it would be for Scotland to become independent. So I just don’t understand why they didn’t do that. And despite the fact that I had built very good cross-party relations in relation to other Brexit initiatives like the Article 50 litigation and stuff, I was very much cut out by the SNP leadership of any of [00:23:00] the discussions that went on with Theresa May, and that. I had a good working relationship with Theresa May, because I’d shadowed her for quite a long time when she was Home Secretary. And I respected Theresa May. I honestly thought Theresa May was trying to do the best thing for her country as she saw it. Which, it’s really England, she would see it as, but she would not really allow for the fact that Scotland had different interests. And I felt that Nicola Sturgeon, instead of grandstanding, should have tried to leverage the power we had at Westminster to get something for Scotland out of the situation. And that wasn’t, in my opinion, done properly. It wasn’t done strategically.

Ruth Fox: Did you ever worry when you were taking that Supreme Court litigation through, did you ever worry that using the courts, using the law in relation to Parliament could be used possibly against you in the future in the event of an independence referendum and attempts to block and stop that?

Joanna Cherry: They’d have to have grounds, wouldn’t they? The grounds we [00:24:00] had for ruling the prorogation unlawful was, it wasn’t a political decision, it was just putting Parliament back in its rightful place. Yes, it’s possible that if the Yes side won a future referendum, somebody on the No side would try to challenge it. But you know, I believe in the rule of law, I don’t believe that the Scottish courts or the Supreme Court made a political decision in the prorogation case. They made a constitutional decision to reinstate the rule of law. And the rule of law under the British constitution is that the executive has to be scrutinised by Parliament, and a Prime Minister can’t just shut down Parliament because he doesn’t like what Parliament’s saying. I mean, that’s what happens in dictatorships. I didn’t really worry about that, no.

Mark D’Arcy: A large chunk of your book is about the extraordinary fall from grace of your friend and mentor, Alex Salmond. It ended in criminal charges against him for attempted rape and sexual assault. What’s your view of that whole affair now from the perspective of several years [00:25:00] on after his death?

Joanna Cherry: Well, in my book, I set out the basis why I believe that there was a conspiracy to smear Alex Salmond as a sex pest. And I set out the evidence for that and what I believe the motive was. I don’t believe that Alex Salmond was a sex pest. I don’t believe that he forced unwanted attention on women. He may have been unfaithful to his wife, which is reprehensible, of course, but it’s not the same as being a sex pest. I spent three years as a specialist sex crimes prosecutor, and I can tell you that I’ve never known a case where a man faced accusations from two or more complainers in a sexual offences case and wasn’t convicted of something at least. He was acquitted of all the charges by a largely female jury, and I think that’s very significant, and I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that Nicola Sturgeon and others tried to throw shade on that jury [00:26:00] verdict. That is a real threat to the rule of law for politicians to throw shade on jury verdicts. And I also set out in the book a pattern within the SNP where complaints were created and weaponised against people who were out of favour, while serious complaints about people who were in favour were ignored. For example, I set out in the book how there was an attempt to smear me at Westminster as a bully using a similar procedure to the procedure the Scottish Government had used against Alex Salmond, and how that failed when I took legal advice and my solicitor identified the same problems with the Westminster procedure as the court ultimately identified with the Scottish Government procedure in Scotland, because the Scottish Government’s complaints procedure that found Alex guilty of sexual harassment in relation to two civil servants, that was struck down by a court in Scotland as unlawful and tainted by apparent bias. And at the same time as I [00:27:00] was having a similar procedure used against me at Westminster, there were outstanding complaints of sexual harassment against the chief whip, which were never dealt with using that procedure, and finally were dealt with by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner. And he was suspended from Parliament for a couple of days as a result of being found to have committed one instance of sexual harassment. So I believe that Alex Salmond was fitted up by Peter Murrell and people close to Nicola Sturgeon because they were terrified he was going to make a comeback in 2017 after he lost his Westminster seat, and he had form for making comebacks. And of course, we now know, I wasn’t able to write about this in the book because it would’ve been contempt of court, but now that Peter Murrell has pled guilty to embezzling over £400,000 from the Scottish National Party, we now know that Peter Murrell had a very strong motive to prevent Alex Salmond from making a political comeback, because he would have been out on his ear if that had happened and his criminality would have been exposed. So [00:28:00] before Alex dies, Alex had brought an action against the Scottish Government for misfeasance in public office. And his wife and heir has assigned that claim to a third party in Scotland, and it’s now being vigorously pursued. And of course, David Davis has made various allegations under parliamentary privilege about this, has made speeches about it in the past, which I cover in my book. And I believe that Peter Murrell’s guilty plea is the tip of the iceberg of wrongdoing within the SNP over the last 10 years. And I think Alex Salmond will eventually be vindicated, but I think it’s very sad that he didn’t live to see that. And I, like his widow, believe that the way he was treated by the SNP drove him to an early grave. Still very upset about it.

Ruth Fox: You tried, Jo, to raise the questions about the SNP’s finances, and actually resigned your position in relation to, was it the financial committee of the party or something, and [00:29:00] you were trying to raise those issues several years ago and you were stonewalled. What kind of response did you get?

Joanna Cherry: How the embezzlement came to light was that the SNP had had two crowdfunders to raise money for a second independence campaign, which had been donated to, not just by members of the party, but also by members of the public who weren’t SNP members. And it was promised that this fund would be ring-fenced. And it became apparent from anyone who could read a set of accounts that the fund wasn’t ring-fenced and the party was having financial difficulty and only had less than £100,000 cash in hand. So that money had clearly gone and there was great unease about that amongst the membership. And there was also unease about the independence strategy, and unease about Sturgeon’s embrace of identity politics. And so at the 2020 conference, which was held online because of COVID, a group of us, colloquially known as the “Good Guys” group of rebels, got ourselves elected to the National [00:30:00] Executive Committee on a specific mandate of finding out what had happened to that money and improving the party’s internal governance. Now, I wasn’t on the Finance and Audit Committee, but the treasurer who was elected as part of the Good Guy Group, he appointed three people with significant business experience, and one of them was an accountant and a former Lord Provost of Edinburgh, to scrutinise. And Peter Murrell refused to show them the books or the bank statements. So they resigned and they were absolutely monstered for resigning. Then the treasurer resigned and I resigned and we were monstered for resigning. But I felt something very dodgy had happened, and I didn’t want to be found liable as a member of the National Executive Committee, which is why I resigned. And I also resigned because of the incredible unpleasantness that was taking place behind the scenes towards those of us who were questioning the party’s finances. I don’t believe that Nicola Sturgeon was involved in any criminality. The reason I’m angry with Nicola Sturgeon is that she stonewalled any attempt to [00:31:00] properly scrutinise the party’s accounts. I’m not angry with her because she was Murrell’s wife. I’m angry with her because she was the leader of the party and his boss. And when people were saying the chief executive won’t show the Finance and Audit Committee the books, and the ringfenced money is gone, that ought to have set alarm bells ringing, and she ought to have let proper scrutiny take place. Instead, she shut down the scrutiny, told us wrongly that everything was fine with the party’s finances, and then made sure that those of us who were asking questions about the finances were treated as traitors to the party and harassed and bullied by people who were her supporters.

Mark D’Arcy: And of course, this wasn’t the only cause which was causing you to get into considerable trouble with the party leadership and getting you monstered. At the same time as all this was going on, you were embroiled in another battle over the issue, which seemed to be erupt almost out of nowhere, self-identification of sex, which absolutely came to dominate the internal politics of not just the SNP, but several other parties as well [00:32:00] for a while, huge battles going on wherever you looked.

Joanna Cherry: Yes, I think that it has dominated, it has been a real issue in left-of-centre parties, even an issue in the Conservative Party. Theresa May supported self-ID for a while. I remember being at a dinner where she announced her support for self-ID, and being appalled. I don’t really think she knew what she was letting herself in for. I think there were a lot of politicians floating around who hadn’t supported equal marriage and had supported Section 28, and were looking for something to prove their modern liberal credentials. And I’m afraid to say, I feel Nicola Sturgeon fell into that category. Nicola Sturgeon had no history of gay rights activism or indeed feminist activism before she became FM. And in fact, she had been very equivocal about the repeal of Section 28 when Labour first mooted it back in Scotland in 2000. So I think Nicola Sturgeon was looking for a progressive cause to give her a legacy. And I think she alighted on self-ID as what was being [00:33:00] presented by some trans activists as the natural next step after equal marriage. Unlike me, she had no hinterland in feminism or lesbian and gay rights activism. She didn’t understand the problems, that we were saying that feminists and lesbians and gay men were saying about self-ID. That’s perhaps the most charitable explanation, but she certainly was very vigorous in shutting down any scrutiny. But I think really what went wrong with the Gender Recognition Reform Bill is an absolute microcosm of everything that was wrong with the SNP’s approach to policy in the last decade. It was an ill-thought through policy. It was never properly debated on the floor of our conference. Nicola Sturgeon and those around her refused to listen to people with legitimate concerns, and demonised people who disagreed with her. And then of course, she failed to take the public with her. As soon as the bill was passed, two things happened. It was challenged [00:34:00] successfully, legally, and the public in Scotland were peaked by the appearance of a convicted rapist turning up at court for his sentencing dressed as a woman in leggings which left nothing to the imagination as to his male genitalia. And that really peaked people in Scotland. It was exactly the sort of thing that we’d warned about could happen, people weaponising this law. So yes, it was a very, very unpleasant time in the party. When I stuck my head above the parapet as a gender critical feminist, I received multiple death threats. A member of the SNP was convicted of threatening to rape me, and I received no public support whatsoever from the party leadership. The implication being it’s all right to make death threats and rape threats to me because I’m a gender critical feminist. So it was a very, very difficult time. But I believe Nicola embraced self-ID after the setback of the 2017 election as a way of both building a power base for herself within the party with young [00:35:00] people, and because she realised she wasn’t going to be able to deliver independence, and she wanted a legacy for herself, and she thought she would use the achievement, so she would see it, of being the first leader in the British Isles to deliver self-ID, as a springboard to a job at the United Nations or in North America. And of course, that hasn’t happened now as a result of the crash and burn of her policy and the other scandals that have tainted her reputation. But it was a very unpleasant time in the party, and the party lost many, many members over this issue. And many people who perhaps didn’t feel as strongly as I did as a lesbian feminist about this, still felt that there was far too much attention, time, and energy being spent on this policy and not enough time and energy being spent on independence.

Ruth Fox: On that score, Jo, where do you think now the independence case is and where is the SNP now in the sort of post-Murrell, post-Sturgeon era? Can you see a route to independence given Westminster’s [00:36:00] unwillingness to agree a second independence referendum, and given the difficulties the SNP has been in? Although of course, you know, at the recent Scottish Parliament elections it won again.

Joanna Cherry: It won again, but it lost 10% of its vote and some high profile seats, including Angus Robertson, lost his seat again, essentially won because the opposition is so split. In the past, the two main opposition parties were Labour and Conservative. Now the main opposition is split three ways between Labour, Conservative and Reform. Labour and Reform now have the same number of MSPs. Each of them have 17 at Holyrood. So I don’t think the SNP should be complacent about their win at the last election. And of course it was before Peter Murrell pled guilty and all the information came to light about the extent of his embezzlement and the fact that the stuff he’d stolen was being used to feather the nest that he shared with Nicola Sturgeon. I think maybe if that had happened, their vote would’ve dropped further. But I think it’s very important to understand that [00:37:00] opinion polls still show the country is split down the middle. So there’s still 50% support for independence, but only 38% support for the SNP at the Scottish election. And a lot of us who support independence feel a bit politically homeless at the moment, because we’re so disgusted with the SNP, but there isn’t really another party for us to vote for. Yes, the Greens support independence, but many of us who are sceptical of the SNP wouldn’t vote for the Greens either, particularly given their behaviour about self-ID where they have really demonised women like me. But I don’t think the cause is lost. There’s a bit of a parallel, really, with what happened in relation to devolution in Scotland. The first referendum on devolution in 1978, I’m only 12 at the time, but ’78, at that time there was only about a third support for the pretty woeful level of devolution that was on offer at that time. And because of the 40% [00:38:00] rule, we didn’t get it. But fast-forward 19 years to 1997, and Blair came to power and held a referendum on the issue of Scottish devolution, a much more powerful Parliament, with 75% support for it. Now, that support grew over time and it grew as part of a cross-party civic movement to support devolution. And there was a lot of discussion about what the Parliament should look like. And so it evolved over time. The issue of Scottish independence is not going away. The challenge for those of us who support it is to increase support to the sort of level that it will become irresistible. And I think that really needs to go up to about 60%. And the way you do that is by reaching out to people who weren’t convinced last time and still aren’t convinced, and answering some of the questions that trouble them on currency, pensions, EU accession. I don’t think the SNP has put nearly enough energy into doing that. And I [00:39:00] think the party also has to think about its strategy for delivering another independence referendum. Repeatedly asking for a section 30 order every five minutes, it’s just becoming farcical now. And I think they need to go back to the drawing board on that. But I think opinion polls show that young people, the generation that’s come up since the last independence referendum 12 years ago, there’s majority support for independence there. And the really interesting thing is that it has become decoupled from SNP support.

Mark D’Arcy: So independence as a cause hasn’t gone away. Has Joanna Cherry gone away? Are you going to get involved again or are you thinking, I’ve had enough, I’ve done my stint in politics, I’m going to concentrate on other things?

Joanna Cherry: When I lost my seat at Westminster, I was actually quite relieved because I had really had enough of the SNP’s internal politics. And I had stopped enjoying being a member of Parliament. So for me it wasn’t a huge blow. And I’m very fortunate that I’m in a career that I could [00:40:00] go back to. And, I’ve built up my practice at the bar again, but never say never. I haven’t ruled out a political career in the future. It’s just I don’t see the SNP, under the current leadership, I could not be a member of. Were there to be a different leader and where he or she to take a different angle, then I would certainly consider rejoining. But part of the problem the SNP has is that most of its elected parliamentarians are now just nodding donkeys, who, when the leadership says jump, say how high. There’s not many independent thinkers left. That could be changed. So yes, I haven’t ruled it out, no.

Mark D’Arcy: Well, Joanna Cherry, thanks very much indeed for joining Ruth and me on the pod today.

Joanna Cherry: Thanks very much.

Ruth Fox: Thanks, Jo.

Mark D’Arcy: I do wish she would say what she meant and not prevaricate! Well, the book is called “Keeping the Dream Alive”. And as I said at the start, other accounts of those events are available.

Ruth Fox: Well, Mark, that’s all I think we’ve got time for this week. But if you’ve enjoyed this episode, listeners, please do take a moment to [00:41:00] rate and review the podcast, if you’re on Apple or Spotify particularly. It only takes a few seconds and it really does help other people discover the show. And if you’d like to support what we do, why not make a donation or become a member of the Hansard Society? As an independent non-partisan charity, we offer a way to show your support for Parliament, democracy and informed public debate. And your support will help keep this podcast going. To join or donate, you can go to our website, hansardsociety.org.uk. That’s hansardsociety.org.uk. Thanks for listening.

Outro: Parliament Matters is produced by the Hansard Society and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. For more information, visit hansardsociety.org.uk/pm, or find us on social media @HansardSociety.