Sturgeon is pinning her hopes on a brutal Brexit
THE notably limp applause from her own side at First Minister’s Questions yesterday was signal enough that the SNP leader is right to have a period of reflection following the general election results.
Let’s be clear – to have a Government engaged in Brexit negotiations hanging by the votes of Northern Irish MPs is hardly viable.
Yet the prospect of us visiting the voting booths again before long concerns Nicola Sturgeon as deeply as it does the Tories.
Sturgeon lost a heap of seats, her independence flagship policy lost her votes and half her remaining MPs hang by a thread.
No one at Westminster can see 35 turkeys voting for an early Christmas and actually facing down the Tory Government.
First it was Theresa May who had the problem with the words.
It took the PM a long time to find “now is not the right time” to deny a second independence referendum.
Sturgeon is now the one in dire straits, having to conjure a phrase that keeps the independence flame alive but dampens the fire.
Don’t ask me how you do that because abandoning a second referendum is a step beyond for the SNP leader.
Intertwined with the falling appeal of Indyref2 is the reality her own popularity is being erased with every bad public encounter with a teacher or nurse.
Political leaders watch their personal ratings as assiduously as ordinary people monitor “likes” on Facebook.
When your Facebook is the nation, it hurts when they start unfriending you.
Sturgeon is far from the May stage, who cannot possibly face another election, but in the north eastern skies mortality has been glimpsed.
Senior Nationalists are openly questioning Sturgeon’s judgment. The lightning rod is Peter Murrell, the Mr Sturgeon who is both married
If Brexit is a disaster, it will be Sturgeon’s best chance for a recovery
partner of the First Minister and the SNP chief executive.
You’d think there would be sensitivity around personal relationships but politics is rough.
A trio of SNP veterans – Alex Neil, Kenny MacAskill and Jim Sillars – have called for the head of Murrell, if only as a proxy for hers.
Well, when Caesar is threatened the praetorian guard must be sacrificed.
Theresa May learned that and lost her top advisers last weekend, leaving her lonelier than she ever has been in politics.
It might do Sturgeon a lot of good to have fresh counsel.
She needs someone who can read the public better than she can because if the election proved anything it was how voters, buffeted by the effects of globalisation and austerity, are in a mercurial mood.
The chemical reaction that happened last week was to accelerate the decline of SNP dominance.
Support for a second referendum, and hence independence, is now running at less than 40 per cent but the temperature of Nationalist support could rise again very quickly.
All is not lost. Most of us approach Brexit with trepidation but Sturgeon will be relishing it.
If Brexit is a disaster it is Sturgeon’s best chance of recovery.