The chief executive of the Scottish National party, Murray Foote, has unexpectedly quit “in the best interests of the party” after it suffered its worst election defeat in nearly two decades. Foote, a former editor of the Labour-leaning Daily Record newspaper, said he did not believe he was the right person to oversee a reorganisation of the SNP and to run the party during the “critical” 2026 Holyrood election campaign. “While I agree these changes are both essential and appropriate, I also recognised after a period of reflection that I could not make the necessary personal commitment to leading the delivery of these changes into 2026 and beyond,” Foote said. “In the circumstances, I concluded it would be in my best interests and the best interests of the party that I step down to give my replacement the time and space to mould and develop these changes in a manner they deem appropriate.” John Swinney, the SNP leader and first minister, said Foote had made a significant contribution to strengthening the party’s “headquarters functions”. “When I became leader of the SNP, I promised to deliver a professional, modern, dynamic election-winning organisation – and Murray’s successor will build on the work he has started,” he said. Foote’s departure, 14 months after he was appointed by the former SNP leader Humza Yousaf, follows two of the worst electoral performances in recent party history, and a collapse in SNP membership. He was widely blamed for mishandling the SNP’s campaign in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection, where Labour overturned a 5,230-vote SNP majority with a 20% swing. In the general election in July, the party then suffered its worst election performance since 2007 by losing 39 of its Westminster seats and 500,000 votes after its vote share fell by 15 points. Those results suggest Swinney faces a challenge to hold on to power in the Scottish parliament elections in May 2026. While Labour’s support has dipped slightly since the chancellor heavily cut winter fuel payments and the donations scandal, the party remains nearly neck-and-neck with the SNP in Holyrood polling. SNP insiders said its campaign database and digital campaigning systems, which were crucial to its early electoral successes, needed an overhaul. The party was comprehensively outclassed by Labour’s campaign and digital operations at the general election. The events that precipitated those defeats were outside Foote’s control. They included Nicola Sturgeon’s shock resignation in February 2023 and Yousaf’s difficult tenure as her successor. Yousaf made the calamitous decision to scrap a power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens and subsequently resigned. During that period, Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrell, who was Foote’s predecessor as chief executive, were arrested as suspects in a police investigation into financial mismanagement in the SNP. Murrell has since been charged with embezzlement, and Sturgeon remains under investigation. These crises contributed to a sharp decline in SNP membership, which has fallen to 64,525 from a peak of 125,000 under Sturgeon. The party said the cost of living crisis was partly to blame. Even so, Foote oversaw an improvement in the SNP’s finances. Party activists questioned whether Foote had the right experience and influence to steer the SNP through this period. He had previously been its director of communications, before quitting that post in March 2023 in the midst of the leadership election to replace Sturgeon after he was given the wrong membership figures to brief the media. Craig Hoy, the chair of the Scottish Conservatives, said: “This is further evidence of the chaos and turmoil at the top of the scandal-ridden SNP. “Murray Foote was appointed to bring some calm and order to the party. [After] little over a year, it appears Mr Foote has recognised he was handed a poisoned chalice and understandably concluded he doesn’t need the hassle of running a party mired in controversy and division.”