Nicola Sturgeon is leaving her trans mess for someone else to clear up

It would be wrong to say Scotland is a nation in shock this morning - that suggests a sense of grieving and grief at Nicola Sturgeon’s departure and that will not be a universal emotion.

Her abrupt resignation is a truly amazing political event, even if the opinion polls must have shocked her to the marrow in recent days. But a few moments of thought would lead to most people asking: What else could she do?

Her obsession with re-writing the rules over gender transition so that people as young as 16 could change gender - just by declaring that that’s what they wanted to do - has been savaged, if not in her captive Holyrood parliament, then at least in the court of Scottish public opinion.

The public didn’t understand - and turned against the woman that they have made First Minister every time they’ve been asked to.

Health - or some other personal issue(s) - may well be at least part of the reason she is resigning. But over the last 24 hours, the rumour mill has only managed to come up with one other possible reason for her decision to invite the press to Bute House for a surprise announcement on Wednesday morning.

Surprise because Scotland’s First Minister has only recently agreed to regular press conferences and because under Ms Sturgeon’s regime, journalists are normally told what’s on the agenda for these events.

And so it is the resignation we all thought.

Well-kept secret

Her resignation secret was well kept within her tightly drawn circle which, in reality, consists only of two people besides herself: Peter Murrell, her husband, who is also the SNP chief executive, and Liz Lloyd, her chief of staff.

Senior nationalists who’ve worked with her over the years found it difficult to believe that she was leaving office after seven years as First Minister and SNP leader.

“It’s just not her style. I can’t believe she’s resigning. It’s not like her to cut and run - after all, she has an important party conference in a few weeks’ time,” said one ex-Cabinet minister.

That conference is being asked to come up with a way of progressing the case for independence - stalled because the Supreme Court has ruled she doesn’t have the authority to hold another independence referendum and successive prime ministers have refused to transfer the powers to Holyrood.

But, as far as her activists were concerned, Sturgeon had taken her eye off the independence ball over the trans issue - infuriating both activist and ordinary voters alike.

That appears to have left her with only one option: to leave the mess for someone else to clear up.