Kate Forbes: Not being honest in leadership election would have been a fraud

Kate Forbes has said if she had answered questions differently about same-sex marriage and abortion differently during the SNP leadership election campaign in 2023 she “would have been a fraud”. 

The deputy first minister lost several supporters in the early stages of the contest after she told journalists that she would not have voted for same-sex marriage if she was an MSP at the time.  

She later said that she believed that it is “wrong” according to her faith to have children outside of marriage, while stressing that: “In a free society you can do what you want.” 

Forbes, who is a member of the Free Church of Scotland, was asked during a Holyrood fringe event in partnership with Coca-Cola at the SNP conference in Aberdeen if she had reflected on how she articulated her answers to questions over same-sex marriage, abortion, and having children outside of marriage.  

She told the audience that she was “absolutely right to be upfront” when those kinds of questions were posed to her early in the contest. 

“My approach is that it is better to be open and honest in a democratic process, and as a democrat I absolutely love whatever the result is. 

“If I had won on the basis of not being open and honest, I’d have been a fraud.” 

Asked if she should have waited until later in the contest to give those answers, she said that it is “not something I would have done”.  

The deputy first minister added: “You’re into that fraudulent business where people would have come out and supported me and then perhaps would have withdrawn their support, as some did and is their prerogative. 

“I was really keen to be upfront. I did not want people supporting me without knowing all the facts.”