Youngest gay MP Mhairi Black says she might not re-stand for parliament

Scottish MP Mhairi Black has spoken about her frustrations with being an MP.

In 2015, Ms Black became the Member of Parliament for Paisley and Renfrewshire South aged just 20, becoming the youngest person elected to Westminster since the Great Reform Act.

But now she’s said she “hates” the job, and might leave at the next election.

The 22-year-old told the Sunday Post: “It has been nearly two years and I still hate the place.

“It is the personal elements – it is a pain to come up and down every week and you are working with a number of people you find quite troubling.

“Professionally, it is more just that so little gets done. It is so old and defunct in terms of its systems and procedures – a lot of the time, it is just a waste of time.”

Ms Black may well now leave parliament at the earliest opportunity, the expected general election in 2020.

“I have a habit of falling into things,” she said.

“I fell into university, fell into this and have fallen into most jobs I’ve had.”

The young politician previously spoke out about the challenges of being a young, gay MP in an interview with the Guardian’s Owen Jones.

She told him: “If you want to cover barriers into politics, I cover a lot of bases. I’m young, female, gay, I’m SNP – hardly the most popular down in Westminster!

She said: “All the things that I thought and argued during the referendum. and during the general election have unfortunately turned out to be totally true

“It is a complete boys club, totally.

“But even when I’m there, I’m taken aback by – in the first instance, how patronising some folk were, and in the second instance how sexist people were.

“It’s subtle sexism, but it still exists. The arrogance and the ‘darlings’ and the ‘oh don’t worry yourself’ and all this rubbish… it’s so excluded from reality.”

The MP previously schooled a Twitter troll who branded her a “gruff old lezzer” and misspelled her name.

She responded: “It’s ‘Mhairi’. At least spell the name right when you’re insulting the gruff, rather young lesbian.”

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• Dec 18 2024

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