Faith, Family, and the SNP: Why Kate Forbes’ Departure Matters

15.08.2025

Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes has announced she will not contest the next Holyrood election, saying she wishes to spend more time with her young family. While this decision is commendable—and reflects values many Scots admire—it comes against a backdrop of years of intense criticism from both the mainstream media and, notably, from some of her own SNP colleagues.

From the moment she stepped forward as a leadership contender in 2023, Forbes’ Christian faith and her traditional views on marriage and gender placed her in the firing line. She has consistently affirmed her belief in the importance of family and biological reality—positions that resonate with many ordinary Scots, but which are increasingly out of step with the SNP’s dominant culture.

Recent events underline this pressure. At the Edinburgh Fringe, arts venue Summerhall declared she would not be invited back due to her opposition to aspects of the transgender agenda, calling her previous appearance “an oversight” and citing “safety and wellbeing” concerns. Forbes responded that cancelling people for their beliefs “undermines democracy.”

The truth is, her treatment raises deeper questions. When a senior government minister—widely respected for her competence and integrity—faces ongoing hostility from within her own party simply because she holds mainstream Christian convictions, what does this say about the SNP’s openness to diversity of thought? If a politician’s views on gender, shared by large sections of the electorate, make them a target for exclusion, are we not narrowing the political conversation to a dangerously small set of “acceptable” beliefs?

Kate Forbes is stepping back to put family first—a choice to be celebrated. But her departure leaves a worrying question for Scottish politics: Do people of faith and traditional values still have a place in the SNP? And if not, should the many Scots who share those values continue to give the party their vote?