SNP heading for opposition if it doesn't tackle 'culture of hate', says Joanna Cherry

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The SNP is heading towards the opposition benches at Holyrood if it does not address the internal “culture of hate”, Joanna Cherry has said.The former Nationalist MP said she will be stepping away from frontline politics to “reflect” on the future of her party.Cherry lost her Edinburgh South West seat to Labour at the general election.Writing in The National, she issued a warning to leader John Swinney: “The enormity of what happened to the SNP vote at the General Election must not be ignored.”Cherry was one of 39 SNP politicians who lost their seat on July 4, with just nine party MPs elected to Westminster.She said: “The SNP need urgently to address what has gone wrong and what led to this huge drop in our vote, or we will suffer another rout at the 2026 Holyrood election.“I don’t sense any great appetite on the part of the leadership of the party to do this properly.”She said she is not currently considering a Holyrood run herself, and warned: “Opposition is where the SNP are heading at present.”Cherry has been one of the loudest internal critics of her party’s leadership in recent years, clashing with former first minister Nicola Sturgeon over gender reform laws in particular.In her final column for the pro-independence newspaper, Cherry said she will remain a member of the SNP but will do so from the background until the party addresses it “culture of hate”.She said: “Unfortunately, a culture of hate against those who dare to disagree has been allowed to flourish in the SNP without anyone in authority having the courage to address it and it has poisoned our discourse and prevented proper debate.”She said it is “profoundly depressing” to see where the party, and the pro-independence movement, has landed almost a