Like her or loathe her, Nicola Sturgeon is one of the most formidable politicians Scotland has ever produced | UK News

Like her or loathe her, Nicola Sturgeon is one of the most recognisable and formidable politicians Scotland has ever produced. 

Her headteacher-style presence gave Scotland prominence on the UK stage after years of being Alex Salmond’s understudy.

When she spoke, prime ministers did not like what they heard. But they knew they had to listen or face the Sturgeon wrath.

Time after time, she rallied supporters towards a second Scottish independence referendum amid the fury of Brexit, but her strategy failed to deliver another vote.

Fatigue and frustration were bubbling under the surface in the last 18 months of her time at the top.

Read more: Sturgeon will not seek re-election

Her idea of introducing gender self-identification laws, which Holyrood passed and the UK government later blocked, further solidified her marmite character. It exposed issues within the SNP and led to cracks in her iron fist, strict discipline regime.

Many of her supporters remember her stewardship of the pandemic as being “strong” while her critics see her as a divisive figure who triggered the rifts that the independence movement and the SNP are dealing with today.

Weeks after stepping down as Scotland’s longest-running first minister, she and her husband became embroiled in a police investigation examining finances in the SNP.

Ex-SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, who has now split from Ms Sturgeon, has been charged with embezzlement, while the former first minister remains a suspect.

She denies any wrongdoing but there is no doubt her personal ambitions of taking a role on the international stage has, so far, been tainted and thwarted amid her challenges.

Ms Sturgeon was for close to a decade the SNP’s biggest asset, but in recent years, those issues at home have become something of a liability.

There will be some senior figures who will be sad to see her leave parliament, but they may be secretly and quietly breathing a sigh of relief at being able to create some distance with the past.

Ms Sturgeon’s biggest achievement must be the fact she won every election during her long spell as first minister. She was an electoral powerhouse. An election-winning machine whose rivals looked at in envy.

She will also be remembered for introducing additional payments for children living in poverty.

She has been frank about how difficult it was to adjust to life after frontline politics. It would be, given most of her adult life has been in the public eye.

The collapse of her marriage also played out for all to see.

One of the biggest reasons for the huge spat between Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond when he left office was his questionable choices, for example taking a job with Russian state broadcaster RT.

Ms Sturgeon’s career choices are less likely to create headaches for the current SNP chiefs, given one of her decisions is to appear at a forthcoming comedy festival.

This news that she will leave politics altogether is not really a surprise but will come as a blow to those around her.

The question is how much she and the SNP will be able to enjoy this new phase the longer the police probe looms large.