SNP loses its shine with Fergus Ewing exit
The Ewings, all three of them – Winnie, her daughter Annabelle and, last but not least, her son Fergus – have always added lustre to the SNP and the cause of independence.
The late Winnie, Madam Ecosse, all but invented it, at least in the modern era, by winning the Hamilton by-election in 1967 and then becoming the first presiding officer of the reformed Scottish Parliament in 1999.
Her daughter has been a minister in several departments, and became a deputy presiding officer of the Holyrood Parliament, and Fergus became – well, just Fergus. He was always his own man, the epitome of the bloke who goes his own way, no matter what.
He has now announced that he's had it with the nit-picking, daft policy-loving comrades who even tried to have him chucked out of the party he's spent all of his adult life supporting. And he's going his own way.
I'll admit I've never agreed with his continued support for independence, a policy that would have beggared his country.
But he was a man of principle who accepted that politicians of different stripes had principles, too. And while they could be challenged, they should not be insulted. Above all, he saw his first duty was to his Highland constituents.
He put their need for decent, safe roads at the top of his agenda – especially the dualling of the A9, widely known as Britain's 'killer road' because of crashes.
And he didn't want to see fishing communities devastated by supposed green policies aimed at protecting the environment, no matter the human cost.
If there was one issue that alienated Fergus Ewing more than most from the SNP, it was Nicola Sturgeon's ill-fated coalition with the ultra-left Scottish Greens. He fought their policies tooth and nail, and rightly declared that most of them were opposed by a majority of the electorate.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the Sturgeon/Scottish Greens plan to rewrite society's views on gender. It was a battle in which Ewing was ultimately on the winning side.
I'm certain that he has not taken this decision to stand as an independent in next May's Scottish Parliament election lightly.
After all, he will almost certainly be standing against an SNP candidate and even at this distance, the arithmetic looks like being very tight. His long-time party will throw everything at him to keep 'his' Inverness and Nairn seat, which they've always held.
I'll probably be wrong – I usually am with predictions – but my tenner is on Fergus Ewing holding on against the odds.
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