Mhairi Black: ‘I’m tired of toxic Westminster’ – SNP deputy to stand down at next election | Politics News
The SNP’s deputy leader in Westminster, Mhairi Black, has announced she will stand down as an MP at the next election, as she is “tired” of the “toxic environment”.
Speaking to the News Agents podcast, she described parliament as “a poisonous place”, where you don’t know if relationships are “genuine” or just people “looking for opportunities”.
And while she understood how some could get “absorbed into the world” of Westminster, it was “still alien to her” after 10 years of working there.
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The SNP’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, said she was “a class of her own”, while former SNP leader and first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, called her a “unique talent”.
Ms Black won her seat of Paisley and Renfrewshire South in the 2015 general election at the age of 20 – one of the youngest MPs to ever be elected.
She was still in her final year of university and managed to oust Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander in the vote.
After holding a number of spokesperson roles for her party over eight years, she shot up the ranks to be SNP’s deputy leader in Westminster when Mr Flynn took over as leader, replacing Ian Blackford.
But just six months into that role, she has confirmed her plans to exit.
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Mhairi Black was interviewed on Sky News the night she won her seat, aged just 20, and pledged to “end the austerity agenda”.
“‘I am tired’ is a big part of it, and the thing that makes me tired is Westminster,” she said. “I think it is one of the most unhealthy workplaces you could be in.
“It’s a toxic environment. It is just the entire design of the place and how it functions is just the opposite of everything I find comfortable.”
Ms Black added: “It is definitely a poisonous place, whether that’s because of, you know, what folk can get away with in it or the number of personal motivations folks have and ulterior motives for things. It is just not a nice place to be in.
“Of course, I work very closely with colleagues, but I suppose I’m talking more about how it is difficult to know if somebody, certainly from other parties, is talking to you because there is a genuine relationship there or whether they are looking for opportunities.”
The MP also said she could “never really switch off” when working in Westminster and the “unsociable hours” means it “feels like you are spending a lot of your life there”.
“In the run-up to the next election, I’ve realised that’ll be almost 10 years that I will have been elected, so a third of my life has been in Westminster, which gives me the ick,” she said.
But Ms Black doesn’t regret her time in parliament, “fighting for what I believe in”.
“I can understand why people get absorbed into the world of Westminster,” she said. “How folks can spend 40 years working there because it is a world unto itself, it’s got it’s own culture and sort of history and everything.
“But it is just still alien to me.”
Tweeting after the announcement, Ms Sturgeon said she was “both gutted by and entirely understanding” of her decision.
“Her reasons resonate,” tweeted the former leader, who stood down from her post earlier this year. “But what a loss of a unique talent, not just to the SNP but to politics generally. I only hope it’s temporary.
“The world needs more Mhairi Blacks in politics, not fewer. I hope we will see her in the Scottish Parliament in future.”
