Alan Cochrane
The SNP leader is not a bit interested in compromise or whether we land up with a hard or soft Brexit
The idea that Nicola Sturgeon was on the point of throwing caution to the wind and plunging Scotland into another independence referendum was considered far fetched until only very recently. But in the last few weeks there has been growing confidence in the First Minister’s circle that the strategy being pursued by Theresa May was playing into their hands.
For the nine months since the referendum, Ms Sturgeon has plotted a carefully judged course from which she’s never deviated, always aiming to lead her adoring activists to the point when yesterday’s announcement could be put off no longer, while at the same time constantly declaring that she was a victim of an intransigent Prime Minister in Westminster.
Despite their words to the contrary, the losing separatists have never accepted their defeat in the 2014 referendum, even if Nicola Sturgeon insisted it was a “once-in-a-lifetime” event. They were always liable to find a way back to the ballot box.
Ever the wily operator, raised in the hard-knocks school of West of Scotland politics and shaped at Glasgow University’s famous debating society, Sturgeon at all times preached compromise. She didn’t want a new referendum, she said. She just wanted to protect the Scottish people, who voted massively to remain in the EU, from the dastardly “Hard Brexit” being pursued by an extreme Right-wing Government in London. What’s more, she emphasised, she had drafted compromises whereby Scotland could benefit from special deals and stay in the single market and customs union.
Forget the fact that such opt-outs were never likely to win favour with the Cabinet, and had been vetoed in advance by other EU members – notably Spain. The truth is that Sturgeon was never in the slightest bit interested in compromise. Neither she nor her ultras cared if there was to be a hard Brexit, a soft Brexit or anything in between, because all they wanted was to get to where they arrived yesterday – the declaration of another vote to break up Britain.
Determined always to be on the front foot, she brought forward by five days her announcement of another independence referendum, which she had been due to make in her keynote speech to her party conference in Aberdeen this Saturday.
By doing it yesterday in the Scottish First Minister’s official residence in Edinburgh’s New Town, this incredibly partisan leader sought to make her announcement seem a non-party occasion. Acting as a sort of “Mother of the Nation” may seem an odd role for such an abrasive lady, but it’s how she now wants to be seen.
In the purely personal contest of one-upwomanship between two formidable politicians, keeping Mrs May on the back foot in London and forcing the PM always to react to what she was saying in Edinburgh has been a constant, and successful, Sturgeon tactic. Alex Salmond may have remained the darling of the London broadcast media but his caterwauling from the sidelines has made no impression on the cool approach of his successor.
Certainly, she has been aided and abetted by some startling own goals from the Unionist camp – Jeremy Corbyn’s support for #indyref2 being but the latest. But Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon’s statement that London would never permit another vote also caused a storm of protest, and Brexit Secretary David Davis’s support for an open border between Ireland and Ulster after Brexit allowed the Nats to declare that such an arrangement should also apply between England and an independent Scotland. Even Chancellor Philip Hammond’s excuse that the special circumstances of Brexit meant he could break Tory manifesto promises on national insurance helped Sturgeon – permitting her to say Brexit justified her U-turn on another referendum.
Biggest of all, however, has been Mrs May’s declared opposition to Britain remaining in the EU single market – undermining Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, often seen as Unionism’s best hope north of the border. So while Nicola Sturgeon may be a politician with no economic policy – or even a currency – to back up her independence dream, she has chutzpah on her side.
As she and Theresa May lock horns, then, it’s an even money bet as to which one wins.