Andy Wightman: the fifth man in Sturgeon’s downfall

Nicola Sturgeon was quick to blame the devastating first finding of Holyrood’s Salmond inquiry on a “partisan leak”, after MSPs found she had misled the committee, misled parliament and potentially breached the ministerial code of conduct.

“What’s been clear is that opposition members of this committee made their minds up about me before I muttered a single word of evidence,” she said as the news broke on Thursday evening.

“So, this leak from the committee – very partisan leak – tonight before they’ve finalised the report is not that surprising.”

While there is no argument about the “leak” bit of that phrase, the “partisan” barb is more problematic.

Scotland’s parliamentary committees, since the early days of devolution, have tended to divide along party lines. This has handed the dominant SNP an advantage over the past decade, when they have been able to pack committees with their own MSPs.

The Salmond inquiry, into the Scottish government’s botched handling of sexual harassment complaints against the former first minister, has been chaired by the Nationalist MSP Linda Fabiani and included three more SNP members.

Unionists were represented by two Conservatives, one Labour and one Lib Dem MSP. That makes four against the four Nationalists.

So far, so partisan. But who was the fifth man who helped deliver the five-to-four verdict against Sturgeon and provoked her cry of prejudice?

Stand up Andy Wightman, an independent list MSP for the Lothian region and until December one of the Scottish Green Party’s then six representatives in the parliament.

The Greens are a small force numerically in Scottish politics but they vote with the SNP, giving the government a narrow majority. They are enthusiastic partners in the SNP’s push for independence.

Wightman, a relatively new but widely respected politician, may have left the Green movement but, sadly, Unionists cannot claim him as one of their own.

He declared his support for the Yes cause in the referendum year of 2014, which came as no surprise to those who knew his background, although at that point he was yet to enter politics formally.

As recently as January this year – when he was no longer within the Green camp – the National newspaper (a separatist propaganda platform) reported that Wightman was backing legal action “to establish that Scotland does not need Westminster’s approval for a second independence referendum”.

This not only places him firmly on the side of the secessionists but, in fact, outs him as a radical, more in tune with Joanna Cherry, the SNP MP greatly out of favour with the hierarchy (and a Salmond supporter), than with Sturgeon and her more cautious agenda for constitutional change.

Wightman did not part with the Greens over their backing for independence but because their stance on transgender issues was at odds with his own views on women’s rights.

It was the party’s refusal to countenance any debate on the subject that, he said, pushed him to the point of no return.

“Some of the language, approaches and postures of the party and its spokespeople have been provocative, alienating and confrontational for many women and men,” he said in his resignation letter.

“It has become evident to me that the sort of open-minded public engagement I would like to see take place on this topic is incompatible with a party that has become very censorious of any deviation from an agreed line.”

He had got into trouble the year before with his Green colleagues for attending a public meeting focused on the impact of the SNP’s gender recognition reforms on women’s rights.

In standing up against trans activism, rife in the Scottish Greens and in Sturgeon’s wing of the SNP, Wightman joins other feminist pariahs, including Cherry.

But it also marks him out as a true independent whose support cannot be easily bought. During Sturgeon’s evidence to the Salmond inquiry, he was one of three MSPs, the others being Labour’s Jackie Baillie and the Tories’ Murdo Fraser, who cast doubt on her veracity with his forensic questioning.

Just weeks before, he voted with the Nationalists on the committee against publication of Salmond’s dossier of allegations, to the fury of the Unionist opposition.

A swing voter then, but one with a reputation in Scotland for integrity and for his principled espousal of causes close to his heart, such as land reform, affordable housing and local democracy.

He is also known as a stickler for the rules and is the only committee member to publicly condemn Thursday’s leak, tweeting a section of the MSPs’ code of conduct on confidentiality.

Wightman is now hoping to win a seat in May’s election as an independent list MSP for the Highlands and Islands, following his move from Edinburgh to Lochaber this month.

In a recent blog post, he set out his stall, though interestingly did not mention independence, focusing instead on community issues in a hard to win fight.

He still holds the deciding vote in the Salmond inquiry, with the full report due out next Tuesday. Who knows where his moral compass will lead him in the final reckoning. But if he continues to resist the pleading of his natural Nationalist constituency, sticks with his conscience, and Sturgeon falls, he may be remembered as the independent who ended the independence dream.