Kate Forbes: SNP frontrunner who could be ‘Scotland’s Jacinda Ardern’

Kate Forbes could become Scotland’s youngest ever first minister after emerging as the frontrunner in the race to replace Nicola Sturgeon.

After more than eight years as head of the Scottish government, the SNP leader shocked the UK by announcing she is to step down. Sturgeon will stay in office until her successor is elected and among those tipped to replace her are Deputy First Minister John Swinney and Health Secretary Humza Yousaf.

But, according to polling taken by The Sunday Times last week, 32-year-old Kate Forbes is currently the narrow frontrunner for the job.

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Sturgeon herself has “privately intimated” that Forbes, currently her finance secretary, is “the most talented of her potential successors”, said The Times. A “strong media performer” who is “widely admired for her grasp of complex issues”, she could soon become “Scotland’s Jacinda Ardern”, said The Independent.

Who is Kate Forbes?

Born in Dingwall in the Highlands to parents who were missionaries, Forbes “spent part of her childhood in India” but when in Scotland studied at a Gaelic school “where she became fluent in the language”, said The National.

She went on to study history at the University of Cambridge before completing an MSc in diaspora and migration history at the University of Edinburgh. She then studied to be an accountant, later working for Barclays.

In 2016, Forbes became the MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, having worked for the constituency’s former MSP, Dave Thompson. In 2018 she was appointed minister of public finance.

Rising political star

“A rising star from the moment she entered parliament”, Forbes’s political career was accelerated in 2020 when Finance Secretary Derek Mackay resigned after it was revealed he had been sending inappropriate text messages to a teenage boy, said The Times.

Although just 29, Forbes was seen as the “obvious, and perhaps only, plausible successor” and had to present the Scottish budget at Holyrood – at just an hour’s notice – on the day Mackay stood down.

It made her the first woman to deliver the budget, as well as one of the youngest people to have ever held the cabinet position. The move firmly “cemented her status as a rising star from the SNP’s post-Sturgeon-and-Salmond generation”, said Politico. And in the three years since her appointment as finance secretary, her “handling of the tricky economy brief has earned her admirers”.

Religious beliefs and social conservatism

Forbes is one of the SNP’s “most socially conservative politicians”, said The National. She is a member of the Free Church of Scotland, “whose views on gay rights and trans people may cause concern among SNP members and fellow politicians”, said the paper. A devout Christian, she has previously said that “politics will pass” while her faith will remain part of her life forever, noted The Telegraph.

She is also believed to hold differing views to Sturgeon on “a key culture wars issue”, said Politico – namely the Scottish government’s bid to change gender recognition laws. While it was this issue that landed Sturgeon in hot water over the final weeks of her premiership, Forbes’s views could still pose difficulties for her in an upcoming leadership contest.

While Forbes “never publicly voted or spoke” against Scotland’s gender reforms, she was one of a small number of SNP politicians who signed a letter expressing their concerns over the legislation in 2019, and “has avoided offering full-throated backing to the plans”.

Is Forbes preparing a leadership bid?

In political circles, Forbes’s appeal as a potential successor to Sturgeon was “enhanced by her lack of ambition – she was all the more appealing for being seemingly unavailable”, said The Times. The paper noted that the “received wisdom” among Scottish politicians was that she “harboured no leadership ambitions”.

But sources speaking shortly before Sturgeon announced her resignation earlier this week say Forbes is reconsidering her political future and may be contemplating a leadership bid. They say she is “refreshed and ready for the challenges ahead” as she prepares to return from maternity leave after having her first child last August.