Is there very much left of Queen Nicola but selfies and self-publicity?
WHEN the Borders Railway was opened in 2015 by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the Queen, I remember reflecting on how generous it seemed for Her Majesty to share the event with Elizabeth II.
Those were the days when old Nic was referred to as ‘Queen of Scots’ – and she seemed to enjoy being ‘regal’. Popular even with non-SNP voters, her approval ratings were to die for. Those days have died. The nation is no longer grateful. Increasingly, she appears to have become our dowager First Minister.
What exactly does she do each day, other than take selfies, cut ribbons and visit schools? That is as close as she gets to attending to her ‘number one priority’, education.
She could have taken on the portfolio herself if it really was – William Gladstone made himself Chancellor of the Exchequer when he was Prime Minister. Instead she gave the role to her deputy, John Swinney, but the word around St. Andrew’s House is that he spends much of his time dealing with disputes between ministers rather than escalating them to his boss.
So her ‘top priority’ is being handled by half a minister. The safe pair of hands has become one hand clapping himself.
PERHAPS we should have some sympathy for her. See her as Queen Victoria and the cause of independence as Prince Albert that passed away in a fever four years ago and she has not been able to find an effective coping strategy since.
Being chauffeured around, shaking hands and forcing a smile seems not to be working for her. Maybe it gives her too much time to reflect on what might have been – not just when Albert was alive, but since the EU referendum.
The Brexit result was supposed to be perfect for her. The UK voted to leave the EU, while Scotland said remain. We were apparently going to rise up and refuse to be removed ‘kicking and screaming’ from Europe. Yet there have not been many kicks – and most of the screaming has come from south of the Border.
Support for independence has not risen and opposition to Indyref 2 has hardened.
She needs a change of mindset, to move from tactics to strategy, to get her through her grief – but seems incapable of doing so. To be fair, tactics have worked so far, saying things to get herself through the day without reflecting on what she said yesterday.
This is a politician who styles herself as a champion of LGBT rights and leads Pride parades – but who, when the Scottish equivalent of Clause 28 was being removed by a Labour-led administration, called for ‘safeguards’ for parents.
A woman who condemns the UK Government for using EU citizens living here as pawns, yet during the 2014 referendum she suggested they would be expelled if an independent Scotland was not given automatic membership of the EU.
The First Minister who has raised our taxes, claiming she needs more cash to invest in public services while she has a £500 million underspend.
She has got away with it so far, but now she needs a strategy to secure her monarchy.
As someone who voted remain and to stay in the UK, I would listen to an argument that explained how an independent Scotland could prosper in the EU – but that requires answers to some strategic questions.
Regretful as I would find Brexit, what is the sense of Scotland leaving the single market of the UK, with which we do more than three times as much trade as we do with that of the EU? How long would it take Scotland to join the EU? We are, after all, not members; the UK is. Would her support for secessionists in Catalonia not possibly lead to a veto from Spain?
How would the nation deal with the £12 billion deficit after fiscal transfers from the rest of the UK stop and we meet the budget rules of Europe? How would we avoid joining the euro and submitting budgets to Brussels?
FUNDAMENTALIST Nationalists like Jim Sillars, who oppose membership of the EU, at least have logic and intellectual coherence on their side – but the current SNP leadership has no answers to these questions. They won’t even let them be debated.
Instead the First Minister goes to ‘events’. Lurches from conference to conference, trying to keep a lid on the separatist fervour of her increasingly frustrated subjects in the membership of the SNP. Perhaps she’s waiting for a significant anniversary to let them buy a commemorative selfie stick.
The pain of Brexit is not helping her. Instead, in the back of the minds of even pro-independence voters it conjures up the spectre of how painful and protracted the negotiations to leave a Union more than 300 years old might be.
If she cannot make significant progress on these fundamental issues, the day is hastening when her royal progress will come to an end.