WHY FIRST MINISTER MUST NOW QUIT

The First Minister agreed to abide by ‘the letter and spirit’ of the ministerial code. As inquiry concludes she misled Holyrood...

AT least some of the truth has finally clawed its way into daylight: Nicola Sturgeon did, in fact, mislead MSPs. The First Minister’s partisans will insist the Scottish parliament committee that drew this damning conclusion did not explicitly accuse her of ‘knowingly’ lying to Holyrood (and therefore to MSPs’ constituents, ie the people of Scotland). So that’s alright, they will claim. Nothing to see here, folks – move along.

But to swallow such a despicable perversion of reality would be to diminish not only the parliament; it would utterly diminish the position of the First Minister itself.

In the foreword to the ministerial code, the First Minister herself wrote: ‘I will lead by example in following the letter and the spirit of this code.’ So tell us, Nicola, were those just pretty words and political spin? or did you actually mean them?

The convoluted and complicated nature of the whole Salmond farrago let Sturgeon escape any responsibility by muddying the waters at every turn. At her committee appearance two weeks ago, she peppered her inexact account of events with generous doses of self-effacement and empathy. She hoped her communication skills would persuade the committee and the wider audience that any misstep she had taken was, to quote one of her predecessors, ‘a muddle, not a fiddle’.

It seems the committee has decided otherwise.

There was little public confidence that the committee set up to investigate the Scottish Government’s disastrous and expensive internal inquiry into complaints against former First Minister Alex Salmond would ever get the truth. The committee, with a Nationalist majority, could hardly be expected to throw a grenade into the SNP leadership, especially in an election year.

But while it’s true that members have occasionally split along party lines, it is to their credit that they have agreed on this fundamental point – that Nicola Sturgeon did, after all, mislead them.

Inevitably the Nationalist majority on the committee ensured the First Minister has a get-out, if she really wants one. The ministerial code states that misleading MSPs is a resigning matter, but only if it’s done knowingly. This word ‘knowingly’ was reportedly the centre of a debate and vote by the committee, which agreed to leave it out of the text. The final report has not been published and we will have to wait and see what form of words it uses.

Dishonest

In 2001 Henry McLeish was hounded from office because of his own ‘muddle, not a fiddle’ concerning his constituency expenses. No one then or now thought McLeish was being dishonest or had besmirched his own office.

But he felt obliged as a matter of honour to leave his post rather than bring it into disrepute. And whose voice was the loudest in demanding his departure? Step forward Nicola Sturgeon.

Seven years later, Sturgeon was eyeing up her latest victim, Scottish Labour leader wendy Alexander. one of her lieutenants had accepted a £950 donation from someone not living in the UK (and therefore ineligible to make a contribution) to Alexander’s leadership campaign a year earlier. Yet despite the mistake being made by someone in her team and not her personally, Alexander chose to do the decent thing and step aside. Scalp number two for Sturgeon.

Could the contrast with our current shower of politicians be any more stark? There can be little doubt that being the kind of politician she is, Sturgeon will attempt to cling onto her office. If she does, and if those around her refuse to show her the door, there will be two enormous consequences. The first will be the utter devaluation of the post of First Minister.

when she drove McLeish from Bute House over a trifling matter, Sturgeon helped set a very high bar indeed for that position. In future, no holder of it should be guilty of even a mix-up in expenses claim forms. That may sound absurd, but it’s what Sturgeon believed at the time. we must assume she still believes it.

So if she insists on remaining, she will do so at the cost of having brought her own office as low as it has ever been, worth significantly less in the eyes of every observer. That is important to the future of Scottish democracy.

The second consequence is that she will lead her party into the election in May with a dark and ominous cloud overhanging her and the SNP.

She may even still prevail at that election but to do so having been confirmed as someone who has misled her fellow MSPs will leave the public asking: ‘If she did it once, when will she do it again?’

Scotland deserves better. The disease of cynicism and mistrust of our politicians is intense at the best of times; how much worse will it get when a leader held in such high esteem by so many Scots seeks to remain in office despite the most serious of misdemeanours?

The SNP is fond of calling its opponents liars. It is a clumsy, unintelligent and overused label and it demeans the entire realm of politics.

Sturgeon herself has spoken of the need to maintain standards of civility in our political discourse. Yet how can she be a credible voice if she puts her own career and self-interest before the interests of the parliament she serves?

Devaluation

Let us not lose sight of what this scandal (and it is a scandal) is about. It is about trust. Trust in a political leader to tell us the truth. No one but the most partisan of Nationalists could look objectively at the web of covert whatsApp groups, un-minuted meetings with the most senior civil servants in the land, strategically-ignored legal advice and then conclude Sturgeon has played this with a straight bat.

And if this is all swept under the carpet and forgotten about, as the SNP administration would prefer, what does that say about the very principle of devolution itself?

Is this it? Is this what decades of campaigning were for – a parliament whose leaders can behave as they please, say what they please, set up a committee of inquiry and then ignore its findings?

Even if we concede that her false statements were not made knowingly, shouldn’t we expect our First Ministers to have the ability not to mislead at all? And if they do, is it too much to ask that they apologise immediately rather than put our parliament and our country through the misery of months of inquiries?

First Minister, it’s time you followed the example of Henry McLeish and wendy Alexander. Just because you don’t have someone like Nicola Sturgeon hounding you doesn’t make your departure any less justified.

JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK IS AWAY