15th February 2023
Today the First Minister of Scotland announced her resignation.
And none of the extensive punditry that her announcement swiftly generated is as interesting and thought-provoking as her speech itself, which should be watched in full.
To say it is interesting and thought-provoking is not to take the content of the speech at face value.
But this post will focus on one juxtaposition.
The most able proponent of Scottish independence has resigned in part on the basis that she was becoming an impediment to independence.
The one passage that struck me – in this era of what this blog has previously described as the Three Ps – was this:
“But the longer any leader is in office, the more opinions about them become fixed and very hard to change. And that matters.”
She has a point: think of many politicians – Johnson, Trump, Corbyn – and you instantly also think of deep partisan lines, regardless of their actual positions on any particular issue.
If she is correct in this, then she is saying that she recognises herself as being the greatest barrier to the cause to which she is committed.
It would be as if Johnson refused to consider becoming Prime Minister again so as to help the United Kingdom find its best place in a post-Brexit world; or Trump standing aside because that would by itself make America great again; or Corbyn accepting that the Labour party is more electable without him.
And even if you are cynical and think there are other reasons for her resignation, it is still difficult to imagine many politicians with or near power voluntarily relinquishing their position, let alone for the cause they also promote.
The resignation may make little practical immediate difference as and when there is ever a further referendum for Scottish independence.
Very few if any people will, at that stage, base their vote on what Sturgeon did or said today.
But between now and then the debates over Scottish independence can proceed without being dominated by partisan views for and against one particular politician.
If only the debates over Brexit, the future of the United States, and the nature of the Labour Party could also be free from being dominated by partisan views for and against one particular politician.
Or any particular politician.
Imagine.
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Going all John Lennon at the end there and why not?
I have never been a supporter of the SNP but Sturgeon has shown today what a principled honest authentic person in politics looks like and why the UK desperately needs more of them right across the political spectrum.
I look forward to further analysis from you if you think it necessary. I have just 2 comments and the first is that this wasn’t the surprise that the initial media reaction seems to be selling. Any reasonably close observer of recent Scottish Politics has seen this coming. My second point is to just slightly correct the following –
“ she recognises herself as being the greatest barrier to the cause to which she is committed” should read something more like “she recognises, at last, that many supporters of Scottish Independence) have come to realise her as being the greatest barrier (multiple promises, no delivery) to the cause to which she says she is committed but has provide no real evidence of said commitment”
There are many speculations about the reason and the timing. Time will tell which are on the nail – again seasoned observers have a good idea but, hopefully, will be patient
Close observer of Scottish politics here, and member of Scottish Greens. Not everyone in Scotland would agree with your first paragraph, but most would have a fair idea of what your second is hinting at, and consider it vexatious. Slightly surprised this passed DAG’s judgment on vexatious comment.
Worse comments have not been approved.
It is difficult to calibrate what is vexatious when responding to your paean. “De mortuis nil nisi bonum”? Or may one at least mention that she may (also) see resignation now as her best chance of taking Scotland to independence as the next-but-one leader of the SNP?
The Independence movement in Scotland is wider than one person and one party and Ms Sturgeon is correct to recognise she may be the barrier. A terrific FM, although where Indy is concerned she is very risk averse. For commentators out there thinking ‘it’s all over for Indy’, they are wrong. You are correct in that this doesn’t change a thing. Indeed a more risk tolerant leader who is more inclusive of all folk Indy and has more fight in them could well prove to be a much bigger thorn in Westminster’s side. Today, while I feel a tinge of sadness I also feel great excitement in what our next leader will do to take us forward on the next step of our road to regaining our Independence. End of day demographics are changing with most of our youth favouring Indy. Old folk like me may not live to see it, but they will.
It was a very canny move and todays Resignation was an example of Standards in Politics that we are sadly missing in the Misogynist World of Politics. Surprised she was able to withstand the amount of hate, threats and personal abuse directed at her ranging from anonymous Trolls and several well known male Politicians.
Our Politics will be poorer for it whilst simultaneously strengthening it today for a standard has been set but l feel a few will be bothered or can meet it.
Agree, Imagine a better quality of Politicians *sighs*, picks up coffee.
There is of course another interpretation of her speech: the gallant resignation to further the cause was in fact a spin on the realization that she had run out of road.
PS. A 30 minute resignation speech?! That says it all.
Well. It seems like the logic of remaining in the UK union is maintained alongside the logic of being in the European Union. As far as Scottish Independence is concerned these are in conflict. So maybe the right thing, at the margin, is to hang on in there and wait for a Labour government, which is really more tolerable to Scots than a Tory one, and a closer relationship with the EU. Less risky.
The notion that Westminster oppresses and the Tories in particular is one of the victimhood myths of SNP. SNP is socialist and so a natural opposition. Sturgeon spun that into a conspiracy theory when the truth is simply that the Tories have been an unpleasant and incompetent government for years. The refusal to hold a referendum is not evil. It’s a reasonable view that SNP’s wish to have referendums until it gets the “right” result is unreasonable and destabilizing. Lab would have done the same.
The problem for Scots is that SNP’s insistence on isolation means that Scotland’s block of MPs play little to no role in national affairs, thereby depriving Scots of their voice.
As for Scexit, it is ironically exactly the same platform as Brexit, only even more damaging economically. It is based on myths and half truths about the economy and the EU as well as the same unrealistic claims about how a separation would be negotiated (NI is a piece of cake by comparison). That said, if the Scots really want it, the English wish them godspeed.
I find the degree of hostility to Sturgeon in media comments today horrifying. Of course, I would expect the comments in the Telegraph today to be vile. In the Guardian, fairly balanced.
But in the FT? – mostly vicious, hostile, and belittling. Why? She seemed to me to be an honest person doing her job.
I too was surprised by the number and extent of the vituperative comments in the FT, which normally has a fair number of Scottish independents amongst its commenters. Ardern’s resignation was similarly responded to. The FT is not usually a bastion of misogyny. Strangely strange.
I couldn’t see examples of vituperative comments in the FT.
I’m generally enjoying the quieter, less vituperative ethos on mastodon compared to twitter. But the one exchange I’ve had where I ended up having to mute someone featured off-the-scale dislike of Nicola Sturgeon – essentially assuming everything she did was sly/self-seeking/suspect. (Have I given you “the three Ss”, there, DAG?) She’s a politician, so of course she is seeking to advance her preferred vision, but to me, as someone who flits between Scotland and England, she has always come across as a far more decent and competent leader than some politicians. Yet some people seem to hate her so much they literally can’t bear the sight of her. (And I won’t even get into the attacks on her appearance – Piers Morgan just the latest of many). I am so glad to see DAG’s assessment that she is stepping back because she recognises the limits of what she can do. If only more of us – like Jacinda Ardern too – felt able to say, ‘Do you know what? I’ve given it my best shot, but I’m tired, and I’m getting in the way, so time to bring in someone else.’
Imagine.
I liked the comment about her on oh god what now podcast today that unlike most politicians she loves reading a wide range of books.
Whether or not one supported or opposed her politics, even her enemies acknowledged her political effectiveness and astuteness. And a second female leader in as many weeks to have the self awareness to resign at an opportune time. I believe it was Enoch Powell who opined that all political careers were doomed to end in failure, but at least Sturgeon and Arderne have succeeded in ensuring their failure was not utterly abject, as so many of their counterparts seem determined to do.
Whether you agree with her policies or not, she has been the most impressive leader of any of the parties in the country in recent years. Not a high hurdle, admittedly, but she has demonstrated qualities that have been sadly lacking elsewhere.
I couldn’t agree more and have long admired her despite generally disagreeing with her.
“Nothing in” her office “Became” her like the leaving it.”
Although overshadowed by the noise around MS Sturgeon’s resignation, Jeremy Corbyn has underlined your point admirably.
Despite the self-evident harm he & his acolytes have done to his beloved Labour Party, he’s announced he’ll defy Keir Starmer’s edict and stand for re-election anyway. Perhaps he should tune in to Nicola Sturgeon’s too, even at the risk of learning something new.
Nicola Sturgeon is worthy of respect in a way that Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss are not. More intelligent, more thoughtful; quite simply more human.
As an English person* (and Scotland rugby fan), I don’t want to see the Scots go. Devomax was a missed opportunity. The currency issue alone makes that plain.
*(If I call myself anything, it’s an inhabitant of the British and Irish Isles. Or The Isles for short (referencing my favourite historian).)