Scotland has long held a crucial place in Christian church history. Centuries of faithful Catholicism followed by a leading role in the Protestant Reformation in the British Isles made Scotland a force in Christianity for a long time. Prominent Christians like pastor John Knox, author George MacDonald, physician John Abercrombie, and singer Sheila Walsh all hailed from Scotland.
Kate Forbes, a member of the Scottish Parliament, belongs on any list of influential, faithful Scots. She has served as a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP) since 2011, and she has been a member of the Scottish Parliament since 2016.
The SNP is a largely center-left party whose members are united around the issue of Scottish independence from the UK. Forbes is one of the party’s most conservative members, and she holds traditionally Christian pro-life convictions as well as believing in the biblical positions on sexuality and marriage.
Forbes told the BBC in 2021 that her faith is “essential to my being. Politics will pass – I am a person before I was a politician and that person will continue to believe that I am made in the image of God.” The BBC also reported that Forbes “said she had a responsibility to represent all of her constituents regardless of any difference in their beliefs.”
Insiders have long seen Forbes as a rising star who is one of Scotland’s best politicians. She’s a compelling communicator with a vision for a prosperous, independent Scotland, but her efforts to advance her career recently ran into the secular buzzsaw.
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In 2023, when Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon resigned in scandal, Forbes put her name forward to replace her. She finished second in the SNP leadership contest to Humza Yousaf, a Muslim.
Yousaf resigned earlier this spring after facing a no-confidence vote. By May 1, Forbes hadn’t thrown her hat into the ring to run to replace him. That day, Iain McWhirter wrote in The Spectator that leftists in Scotland had declared war on Forbes:
Forbes, who is politically astute, highly articulate, and economically literate, would clearly be the most able candidate to lead the SNP. She is already significantly ahead of Swinney in the latest Ipsos opinion poll. But this has horrified the nationalist establishment and leftie journalists who have launched an almost hysterical campaign to have her stopped.
Forbes is being portrayed on social media as ‘the candidate for the 19th Century’ and a reactionary bigot by the SNP’s many pro-LGBT activists.
This characterization, McWhirter says, comes even though Forbes “comes across as a young, streetwise woman who just happens to be religious. She has never expressed any intention to roll the clock back to the days of backstreet abortions and persecution of homosexuals. Quite the reverse. She insists that, as a democrat, she has long accepted things like gay marriage even though they conflict with the strict tenets of her Christian faith.”
On his podcast on Thursday, Albert Mohler highlighted an op-ed in a London newspaper that treated Forbes as if she had plans to bring Scotland back to the Dark Ages after recent radical left leadership in the country:
The article by Kenny Farquharson holds up some as political exemplars that are to be applauded, are to be appreciated, because they were progressivist statements. He mentions Nicola Sturgeon there in Scotland and also Humza Yousaf, who was “the first Muslim to lead a national government in the Western world.” Farquharson goes on to say, “This in itself is an extraordinary badge of honor for Scotland.” But when it comes to Kate Forbes, the threat was that she would be everything people like Kenny Farquharson do not want to see as representative of Scotland and its government.
And it’s because, the argument here is just really, really clear, it is because she’s associated with a form of Christianity that poses a direct threat to the liberationist liberalism of the Scottish culture, now in an extremely secularized form. Farquharson says that what a leader believes is important. “Who our leaders are matters. What they believe matters. What they represent matters.” And Farquharson then asked the question, “What message would a Kate Forbes first ministership send? That single mothers are sinners? That sex outside marriage is wrong? That ghouls should be allowed to stand in the streets outside abortion clinics, muttering incantations? That most of us in secular Scotland are going to hell?”
Secular leftists were up in arms because, as a Christian, Forbes’ “faith does not reflect the country she wants to lead.” She eventually decided not to run for leader of the party or first minister, choosing instead to endorse centrist John Swinney, who won the election.
Fortunately, Swinney saw the value that Forbes brings to Scottish politics — which secular leftists refuse to acknowledge — and named her Deputy First Minister.
“This is a recognition that Scotland is a far more ‘small c’ conservative nation than the priorities of recent SNP governments might suggest,” wrote Euan McColm in The Spectator on Wednesday. In other words, the leftists may have a big bully pulpit, but they don’t represent the views of all Scots.
“The appointment of Kate Forbes to the second most powerful position in government will infuriate many on the nationalist left,” McColm added. “But the truth is she represents the views of a great many Scots – including half the members of the SNP.”
The radical leftists in Scotland — and elsewhere — would want nothing more than to deny conservative, Bible-believing Christians a seat at the political table. Good for Swinney for recognizing what Forbes brings to the table. I, for one, am excited to see what her future holds.