THE SNP's deputy leader at Westminster has announced she will step down at the next General Election.
Mhairi Black, who has been the MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South since 2015, told The News Agents podcast she would be looking to leave the London parliament.
Black said Westminster was a "toxic workplace", sparking speculation that she may look to win a seat at Holyrood in the 2026 Scottish elections.
🚨 BREAKING: @MhairiBlack tells @maitlis she is stepping down as an MP at the next general election. She says Westminster is a “toxic workplace” that has taken its toll on her "body and mind". Coming to @GlobalPlayer pic.twitter.com/1s9OcvpD2y
— The News Agents (@TheNewsAgents) July 4, 2023
Asked why she has made this decision, the outgoing SNP MP said: "Honestly, because I'm tired is a big part of it. And the thing that makes me tired is Westminster.
"I think it is one of the most unhealthy workplaces that you could ever be in. It's a toxic environment. Just the entire design of the place and how it functions is just the opposite of everything that I find comfortable"
Pushed on her description of the parliament as "toxic", Black said: "It's definitely a poisonous place. Whether that's because of what folk can get away with in it, or the number of personal motivations, and folk having ulterior motives for things, and it's just not a nice place to be in."
She went on: "I suppose I'm talking more about how it's difficult to know if somebody is, certainly from other parties, is talking to you because there's a genuine relationship there, or whether they're looking for opportunities, so you can never really switch off when you're in Westminster.
"And also, given the unsociable hours that Westminster works as well, it feels like you're spending a lot of your life there. And in the run up to the next election, I've realized, that will be almost 10 years that I'll have been elected. So, a third of my life I've spent in Westminster, which gives me the ick."
When she was first elected in 2015, displacing Labour's shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander, Black became the "Baby of the House" of Commons. She was 20.
Black said that her youth – she is now 28 – may be one of the reasons why she could "see everything that's wrong [with Westminster] so starkly".
The SNP MP, a regular columnist for The National, further said she understood how people can end up spending "forty years working there because it's a world unto itself".
"It's got its own culture, it's got its own history and everything, which is just still alien to me."
After the news broke, Black released a statement where she reiterated her criticism of Westminster as an "outdated, sexist and toxic" place.
She became the deputy leader of the SNP's group at Westminster in late 2022 after running on a joint ticket with Stephen Flynn, who took over as leader after Ian Blackford' stepped back.
Black's announcement comes after a handful of other SNP MPs, including Blackford, also said that they would not be standing at the next General Election.
Peter Grant, Douglas Chapman, Stewart Hosie, and Angela Crawley have all said they will also leave Westminster at the next vote.
After Black announced her resignation, former first minister Nicola Sturgeon said it was a loss for politics as a whole, adding that she would like to see the MP in the Scottish parliament in the future.
