Scotland : Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon to step down after eight years

Scot­land’s First Prime Min­is­ter Nico­la Stur­geon announced his inten­tion to step down Wednes­day, say­ing part of being a politi­cian is know­ing it’s time to make way for some­one else. said.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the Bute House, Edin­burgh’s offi­cial res­i­dence, Stur­geon said he strug­gled with his deci­sion, but the pres­sures of his job were relent­less and he described him­self as a man as well as a politician.

The BBC report­ed on Wednes­day that Stur­geon, who head­ed the coun­try’s decen­tral­ized gov­ern­ment, the Scot­tish Nation­al Par­ty, for eight years, has faced months of con­tro­ver­sy over a law that would sim­pli­fy gen­der reas­sign­ment on offi­cial documents.

The deci­sion sur­prised politi­cians despite the ongo­ing con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the gen­der recog­ni­tion bill. The min­is­ter has vowed to take the UK gov­ern­ment to court for block­ing the law, argu­ing that the UK Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­men­t’s veto of the gen­der recog­ni­tion reform bill was a “seri­ous error”.

Hailed as a land­mark by trans­gen­der rights activists, the bill would allow peo­ple over the age of 16 in Scot­land to self-report to change the gen­der des­ig­na­tion on their iden­ti­ty doc­u­ments, and would allow med­ical atten­tion on gen­der dys­pho­ria. It elim­i­nates the need for diagnostics.

The leg­is­la­tion sets Scot­land apart from the rest of the UK where a med­ical diag­no­sis is required before legal migration.

But the move has been noth­ing short of con­tro­ver­sial in Stur­geon’s career, which is known for sel­dom going wrong.

For exam­ple, he was laud­ed for his calm­ness and can­dor in his han­dling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a result, the idea of Scot­tish inde­pen­dence from Britain, a long-held dream of the Stur­geon gov­ern­ment, once again emerged as a polit­i­cal issue.

Scot­land is part of the Unit­ed King­dom, but like Wales and North­ern Ire­land, it has its own semi-autonomous gov­ern­ment with broad pow­ers in areas such as health.