Nicola Sturgeon has resigned as First Minister

The Glasgow Southside MSP announced her resignation this morning at a news conference in Bute House, the First Minister's official residence in Edinburgh.

She said: "I'm proud to stand here as the first female and the longest-serving first minister."

"Part of serving well would be to know, almost instinctively, when the time is right to go.

"In my head and in my heart I know that time is now."

She said she was announcing, "My intention to step down as First Minister and leader of my party."

She outlined her reasons for resigning.

She said: "This decision is not a reaction to short-term pressures."

"When it comes to navigating choppy waters ... I have plenty of experience to draw on. "If this were a question of resilience I wouldn't be standing here.

She said it was "deeper and longer-term".

She said she had been "wrestling" with the decision for some weeks.

Sturgeon said she had been "Trying to answer two questions: Is carrying on right for me and is me carrying on right for the country, my party and the independence cause".

She added: "I've reached the difficult conclusion it's not."

Sturgeon said the "tone and tenor" of political discourse had an impact on her decision to resign.

She added: "Fixed opinions people have about me are being used as barriers to reasoned debate.

"Issues that are controversial end up irrationally so, and presented through the prism of what I think and people think about me."

She said she was "not leaving politics".

Sturgeon said she intended to be there when independence is won.

She added: "Scotland is a changed country since 2014, in so many ways for the better."

Sturgeon said she will remain in office until a successor is in place.

Sturgeon has been First Minister since 2014, following the resignation of Alex Salmond after the independence referendum.

Her eight years in office make her the longest-serving of Scotland's five First Ministers.

She is one of the few remaining MSPs who were first elected in 1999 after the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament.