Nicola Sturgeon has stepped down as Scotland’s first minister, after more than eight years leading the Scottish government.
“We must reach across the divide in Scottish politics and my view is that a new leader will better be able to do this,” she said.
Her leadership has seen Scotland through some tumultuous times, including five British prime ministers, Brexit, the pandemic and her party's sexual misconduct scandal.
Here are five key issues that defined the Sturgeon years.
The push for Scottish independence
Ms Sturgeon rose to first minister after a referendum on Scottish independence.
Her political party, the governing SNP, had independence as a top priority, and when the referendum ended in a win for No (55 per cent), Ms Sturgeon’s predecessor Alex Salmond stepped down.
Ms Sturgeon was elected unopposed as his successor, and vowed to continue the fight.
Two years later, the UK voted for Brexit (52 per cent). However, more than 60 per cent of Scots had voted to remain.
This was to become the SNP’s new strategy to bring about independence, on the argument that Scotland was being forced out of the EU against its will.
Ms Sturgeon hinted that she might put a new referendum on Scottish independence on the table and unsuccessfully sought to negotiate separate trade and immigration protocols for Scotland with the UK’s new Brexit negotiators.
In the 2019 election, the SNP won all but one seat in Scotland after using independence as a central pillar of its campaigning.
Ms Sturgeon formally requested the power to hold another referendum, on the basis that Brexit had changed the landscape of the previous vote and that her re-election showed that Scotland was now pro-independence.
However, then-UK prime minister Boris Johnson refused, using the pro-independence camp’s quote against them that the referendum was a “once in a generation” vote.
Ever since, Ms Sturgeon and her party have been planning ways around the UK’s ability to block another referendum, which is enshrined in constitutional law.
In June last year, Ms Sturgeon set down the date of October 19 2023 for a new referendum, subject to legality and constitutionality. However, in November 2022, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled that the Scottish Parliament did not have the power to call a second referendum.
The SNP is to hold a conference within the next few months to hammer out its next course of appeal.
Five prime ministers
Since Ms Sturgeon’s first election, the UK has changed prime ministers four times.
Ms Sturgeon has watched a parade of Conservatives come and go from Westminster, from David Cameron through Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, and ending with Rishi Sunak, and has clashed with them all.
David Cameron was outraged with her after she referenced the scandal that ultimately ended his leadership in the Scottish parliament.
She delivered a jibe at Mr Cameron of being “pig-headed” over his approach to Scotland since the 2014 referendum.
“The prime minister's attitude to Scotland betrays the worst characteristics of his government: arrogant, patrician and out of touch; pig-headed some might say.”
The next prime minister to work alongside Ms Sturgeon, Ms May, paid a clenched-teeth tribute to the first minister, openly referencing their difficult working relationship.
“We disagree on many issues but I’d like to thank you @NicolaSturgeon for your long, tireless service to our country & for the professional relationship we maintained as leaders,” Ms May tweeted.
Ms Sturgeon had previously described working with Ms May as “soul-destroying”.
Despite his predecessors, it’s Boris Johnson that takes the title of "worst prime minister”, according to Ms Sturgeon.
Continuing the trend of tensions over Scotland’s independence from the UK, Boris Johnson used his departing speech to denounce the movement
“Those who want to break [the union] up, they'll keep trying, but they will never, ever succeed," he said.
Ms Sturgeon responded: “I obviously wish him and his family well, but there is no getting away from the fact that Boris Johnson has been the worst prime minister certainly in my lifetime”
Liz Truss’s shorter stay in Number 10 came with an apparent policy of not engaging with the first minister.
Ms Sturgeon says Ms Truss did not call her once during her time in office, despite the Scottish leader having had talks with Theresa May and Boris Johnson within days of them being appointed.
Ms Truss had labelled Ms Sturgeon as an "attention-seeker" who was best ignored.
Upon Ms Truss vacating the prime minister’s office, Ms Sturgeon tweeted: “There are no words.”
Ms Sturgeon’s working relationship with current PM Rishi Sunak initially appeared constructive until the relationship broke down over his government’s intervention in Scotland’s gender bill.
Gender recognition caught up in constitutional battle
The most-recent controversy to envelop Ms Sturgeon came in the form of an unprecedented intervention into Scottish parliament by the UK government.
In January this year, the UK government announced it would use its powers over the Scottish parliament to veto a Scottish law that would make it easier for transgender individuals to alter their legally recognised sex.
The new law — passed by the Scottish parliament late in December — would allow transgender individuals over the age of 16 years to apply for a birth certificate declaring their legal gender without a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Despite significant dissent — which saw the resignation of one minister — the Scottish parliament passed the legislation with cross-party support six years after it was proposed by Ms Sturgeon.
The Sunak government opposed the law on the ground that it was incompatible with the existing Equalities Act, which applies UK-wide.
Supporters of Scotland’s law described the move as opening a “powder keg” between the Scottish and UK governments at a time when independence was very much front of mind.
Opponents of the bill were further spurred by reports that convicted rapist Isla Bryson — who came out as a transgender woman after her crimes — was being initially assessed in a women’s prison.
Ms Sturgeon spoke out on the issue, saying “a rapist should not be in a women's prison”.
Within days of her comments, Bryson was moved to a male prison, but reactions to Ms Sturgeon’s resignation have been saturated with references to the controversy.
The COVID-19 pandemic
Scotland’s handling of the pandemic was not unlike that experienced by much of the world.
Battling PPE shortages, aged care homes in crisis and lockdown laws, Ms Sturgeon steered Scotland through multiple waves of the virus with the initial hope of eventually reaching COVID-zero.
Scotland went into lockdown on March 23, 2020, with the rest of the UK, three weeks after the first case was identified. Case numbers stood at 83 by that time.
In mid-2021, Ms Sturgeon admitted in parliament that she wished she’d made the call earlier.
"If I could turn the clock back, would we go into lockdown earlier than we did? Yes, I think that is true,” she said.
By mid-April 2020, just six weeks after the first case was identified, government figures showed there were more than 1,700 COVID-19 cases among residents in adult care homes.
It was revealed that more than 1,000 elderly hospital patients were transferred into care homes without receiving a negative COVID-19 test result, and had passed the virus on to other residents.
Thousands of care home residents have now died with COVID-19 recorded as the cause, and Ms Sturgeon has said she regrets not enforcing testing.
In April 2020, NHS workers revealed staff were being made to reuse PPE, contradicting Ms Sturgeon’s assurances to parliament that Scotland had ample supplies.
At the end of May, when there were more than 15,000 cases of COVID-19 in Scotland, Ms Sturgeon announced the seven-week lockdown would begin to ease.
Scotland would, like many other countries, see lockdowns and restrictions come and go over the following 12 months.
In July 2020, Ms Sturgeon was advocating that the UK should adopt a COVID-zero strategy, however Boris Johnson dismissed her calls as ‘impractical’.
In April 2022, Ms Sturgeon called for Ms Johnson to resign after revelations he broke lockdown policy.
The following week, Ms Sturgeon received an official reprimand from Police Scotland after a video emerged of her campaigning in a barber shop without a mask.
It was the second time Ms Sturgeon had been caught flouting mask rules.
She apologised and said the police had been "absolutely right to treat me no differently to any other citizen".
A sexual harassment scandal
In August 2018, it was revealed that Ms Sturgeon’s predecessor Alex Salmond had been the subject of two allegations of sexual harassment by civil staff, stemming from his time as first minister in 2013.
Ms Sturgeon admitted that she had met with Mr Salmond to discuss the investigation.
She referred herself to an independent ethics panel and was cleared of violating the ministerial code, however a separate inquiry by a parliamentary committee described the government's actions as "seriously flawed".
The committee voted by five to four that Ms Sturgeon misled their inquiry during her evidence.
Ms Sturgeon’s involvement prompted what was widely considered to be a falling out between the two.
The allegations were lodged soon after Ms Sturgeon introduced new government policies on sexual harassment in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
Mr Salmond believed the policy was aimed at him and accused Ms Sturgeon and her supporters of plotting against him.
He was eventually cleared of all charges and took legal action against the Scottish government and won.
Many prominent MPs openly backed Mr Salmond, who then formed his own political party, the Alba Party, to rival the SNP.
