Ian Blackford to stand down as SNP MP at next election

Ian Blackford, the SNP's erstwhile Westminster leader, is to basal down arsenic an MP astatine the adjacent wide election.

Mr Blackford has served arsenic MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber since 2015, erstwhile helium defeated erstwhile Liberal Democrat person Charles Kennedy.

He led the SNP's Westminster radical for 5 years and faced 4 antithetic Conservative premier ministers astatine question clip successful the Commons.

He stepped down from that presumption successful December.

The resignation arsenic radical person avoided Mr Blackford facing a imaginable situation from his eventual successor, Stephen Flynn.

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