Hero worship? Try cold hard reality, Nicola
With SNP conference this week, a timely warning ...
IT has become a familiar ritual ever since the SNP effectively did away with its party conferences to replace them with triumphalist rallies. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon strides on to the stage and, rather than describing any fresh political vision, throws to her adoring crowd glistening hunks of red meat in the form of hints that a second independence referendum is just around the corner. An hour later, the troops are happy and Miss Sturgeon has dodged – yet again – having to provide any detail on how exactly she might, against the express wishes of the majority of Scots, stage and win another vote on the future of the UK.
The First Minister, whose election in 2014 promised an end to the division fomented by her brash predecessor, Alex Salmond, has squandered the goodwill of No voters by refusing to accept the result of the independence referendum.
And she has been at her most tin-eared during SNP conferences where, to keep the membership on side, she has talked about the 2014 result as if it was a mere blip, a mistake that will soon be rectified.
The truth is that while the First Minister has been keeping the faithful on Indyref 2 alert, the rest of the country wants desperately to move on.
The loss of 21 MPs, including Alex Salmond, in last summer’s General Election showed that patience with Miss Sturgeon’s approach is wearing thin.
When Nicola Sturgeon takes to the stage at the SNP’s rally (they’re calling it a conference in the leaflets but I’ve been to these events and I know how they shake down) in Aberdeen next weekend, she will – of course – be greeted as a great hero.
But will she be able to keep those referendum-hungry members happy?
If they are not paying attention, yes.
The publication a little over a week ago of a lengthy report by the SNP-established Growth Commission – chaired by former MSP Andrew Wilson – tells us where the First Minister is on the matter of independence.
And she’s not, necessarily, at the same place as many of her party members or, for that matter, a number of those in the wider Yes movement.
The commission’s report is, inevitably, flawed. Much of what it concludes about the prospects of an independent Scotland is based on guesswork or the modelling of best-case scenarios.
But where it clangs hard into reality is when it recognises that independence would not be painless, that the early years (at least) of a new nation would require compromise on currency, and that a thriving economy – if it is achievable – would take time to build and grow. The minority of Scots for whom independence is the be-all and end-all can, it’s now clear, easily square the necessary financial pain of constitutional resettlement with their proclaimed desire to see a fairer, more prosperous country.
Yes, they say, belts might need to be tightened but at least we’ll be in charge.
This romantic vision is not yet shared by most Scots who simply want the First Minister to cross the staging of a second referendum off her to-do list and get on with the day job.
The Growth Commission report was not ordered solely to provide some kind of plausible blueprint for an independent Scotland; perhaps its greatest purpose for the SNP is to move debate away from the timing of a referendum and back into the realities of the here and now, when independence remains a minority preference.
Some members of the wider Yes movement, particularly on the radical Left, have spent the past week picking apart the commission’s recommendations and dismissing them as too cautious, too timid.
Four years ago, the SNP led the chorus of hyperbole about how an independent Scotland would flourish from day one with abundant wealth fairly distributed among the people.
The party, having persuaded a great many people of the existence of this land of unicorns and honey, now has to bring those people back to earth with a bump.
The First Minister has no option but to let them down when she speaks next weekend.
If Nicola Sturgeon, after praising her Growth Commission for its wise and careful consideration of Scotland’s prospects, continues to dangle the prospect of another referendum in front of her supporters’ faces, others might reasonably ask if the report is anything other than a public relations exercise.
Recalibrating expectations will be no easy task for Miss Sturgeon. In the aftermath of referendum defeat, the SNP leader and senior colleagues appeared at huge rallies, with their names in neon, 20ft tall.
A surge in SNP membership to around 130,000 meant there was no shortage of true believers to fill huge halls across the country and they were united in the belief that it was time for another heave.
Miss Sturgeon promised these supporters that the case for independence still had momentum.
She told them that election victories would advance their cause, she told them that Brexit would create a new clamour for constitutional change.
But she has never been able to give those members what they want.
The First Minister might in recent years have revealed herself to be far more of a fundamentalist than the spin which surrounds her might have suggested, but she knows that now is not the time for another referendum.
Miss Sturgeon should bear in mind that, although she will be speaking as SNP leader next weekend, she has the considerable honour of serving as First Minister for all Scots.
The time for ‘will I, won’t I?’ games is long past and Miss Sturgeon should take the opportunity to rule out any attempt to hold a referendum before the 2021 Holyrood election.
Scotland’s problems – falling literacy and numeracy, a struggling National Health Service, a criminal justice system that consistently fails victims – cannot continue to be ignored while members of the SNP indulge themselves in fantasies about extra-time comebacks.
Miss Sturgeon’s popularity is waning; her constitutional monomania has played its part in that.
The more excitable among the First Minister’s supporters might believe next weekend’s conference should focus on the battle for independence. Smarter heads will have a different priority – getting the party in shape for the next Scottish elections.
Nicola Sturgeon has played all her cards on the constitution and lost.
It is time now for her to get on with governing for the pro-UK majority or she will find, in just three years, that 21 losses in an election is an easily breakable record.
She knows now is not the time for a referendum