Last Wednesday’s SNP Westminster group meeting was fraught, by all accounts, with MP after MP telling their leader, Ian Blackford, that they had had enough. Some were on the verge of tears, reporting lengthy phone calls persuading valued activists not to leave the party, while others raised angry exchanges and repeated threats to sue on social media. The context was the increasingly toxic row within the SNP over transgender law reform, and later that evening, the party leader, Nicola Sturgeon posted a video statement on Twitter in which she stated categorically that there was “zero tolerance” towards transphobia in her party. But the meeting’s focus was Joanna Cherry, admired cross-party for her legal challenges during the Brexit crisis, and who, only three years earlier, came within one vote of beating Blackford to his role. She is also an unrepentant champion of concerns around the erosion of women’s rights and one of Sturgeon’s fiercest internal critics. On Monday, Cherry was sacked from the party’s frontbench during a reshuffle that was press-released as “drawing on new talent”. But it has brought the SNP’s row over transgender matters off Twitter and into the light and risks further entrenching deep divisions within the party. A senior Westminster source insisted that Cherry’s relegation was not a direct result of her stance on transgender law reform: “She was turning out to be a really disruptive influence on the group and some folk [at the meeting] were visibly upset about her behaviour.” The Guardian understands that some form of no-confidence motion was being prepared by colleagues, and that Blackford “had to say: enough”. The reshuffle was “about a team of people who can work together”, they said. The source added that, while Cherry was valued as a highly effective Commons performer, she repeatedly clashed with colleagues and was seen as a bully. “She has a robust personality. Always quick to characterise herself as the victim, the victim of bullying. What she doesn’t see is she’s actually guilty of the same stuff herself.” A source close to Cherry suggested that the daily challenges of high-profile political life demanded a robust countenance, but insisted that accusations of bullying were “lies and classic deflection” from the “bullying, lies and smears” that she had faced from colleagues. Since her sacking, Cherry has received a torrent of abuse on social media, and on Thursday a man was charged in connection with alleged threats made against her after her sacking. Regardless of the briefings, there are plenty across the spectrum of opinion who see Cherry’s removal more plainly as the party leadership – and Nicola Sturgeon herself – neutering a political rival. “Anyone with an ounce of political knowledge can see that there was an agenda, regardless of whether you agree with the agenda or not,” said one prominent Glasgow activist who described themselves unequivocally as a Sturgeon supporter. Cherry has found herself quite unapologetically at the nexus of a series of debates that have challenged the SNP’s famed internal discipline and unity of purpose. Many Sturgeon supporters point to her interview with the Times on the eve of the SNP conference in November, in which she criticised Sturgeon’s leadership and referendum strategy, as evidence of Cherry’s repeated disloyalty. And she remains a prominent supporter of the former party leader Alex Salmond, amid intensifying allegations that officials close to Sturgeon tried to orchestrate government and police investigations into sexual misconduct allegations against him, which Sturgeon categorically denies. Indeed, one supporter this week suggested Cherry could now be in “pole position” to replace Sturgeon should those inquiries result in the first minister’s resignation. The same source close to Cherry said the sacking went well beyond a personality clash: “Ever since she challenged Blackford for Westminster leadership there has been a sustained campaign to undermine and marginalise her. This is because she won’t be quiet about women’s rights, she stuck up for Alex and she is critical on independence.” Party members who share Cherry’s stance on transgender matters pointed out that their inboxes had been similarly filled in recent days with members threatening to leave the party because of her sacking. Taken alongside Sturgeon’s video message, one prominent critic said there was “a real fear that people will use this as a tactic to wrongly smear people without evidence”. Cherry has repeatedly stressed that it is not transphobic to question the impact of self-identification (streamlining the process by which an individual can legally change gender) on women’s sex-based rights.
Another prominent activist who shares this stance said that Cherry’s removal from the frontbench would have a “chilling effect” on those who wanted to speak out: “Jo Cherry was a very loud warning.” She argued that recent overspill of the sex and gender debate into other areas of policymaking, including hate crime reform and rape victims’ access to medical examiners, was proof of growing concerns among the Holyrood group of MSPs. Some SNP MPs described a “palpable sense of relief” within the Westminster group this week, along with a degree of frustration that action had not been taken sooner. As one MP said: “The party has a hard-won reputation for being socially liberal, pro-equality, and any perception that our politicians are not has a terrible effect on younger supporters in particular, and with that comes the fear that they will go to the Greens at the next election.” The symbolism of Cherry’s removal will go some way to reassuring those concerned about transphobia, according to senior equalities activists, and represents “a green light” for action. But those activists also believe that Sturgeon’s video statement itself, while welcome, came “far too late”. James Mitchell, a professor of public policy at Edinburgh University who has studied the SNP extensively, contrasted Sturgeon’s apparent “intolerance of dissent” with a party that historically encouraged debate and participation. Acknowledging that all political parties are struggling with trans policy, Mitchell argued that the SNP leadership had failed to listen to those members who disagreed with them on policy and strategy but might be willing to accept these differences if they felt their voices had been heard. “This has created a deep, entrenched binary divide that no one is trying to bridge. The trouble is, when you create these camps other issues fall into them.”