Sturgeon still fails to convince

NICOLA Sturgeon’s speech to the David Hume Institute last night marked a change of direction in her Brexit argument.

The First Minister has clearly decided that the dislocation of leaving the EU is simply not going to be enough to make a majority of Scots support independence.

There was a small bounce for Yes in the polls immediately after the shock result last June, but No has consistently maintained a comfortable lead ever since.

Part of the problem is tens of thousands of 2014 Yes voters also backed Leave. Such voters remain bewildered by an SNP position that says Scotland must get out of one union (the UK), but stick with another (the EU).

This is a major headache for Sturgeon because she’s basically promised her supporters another independence referendum in the next two years.

So the SNP leader has gone back to what she knows best – desperately hunting around for fresh grievances to bolster support.

This explains her extraordinary warning that a secret Tory plot to undo devolution is being executed under the cover of Brexit.

Her speech was light on evidence but it seems to be based on comments by Tory leader Ruth Davidson about the Common Agricultural Policy.

Does the suggestion EU farming subsidies should be replaced by a UK-wide system really justify claiming “the very foundations” of the Scottish Parliament are under attack?

This type of Donald Trump-esque conspiracy theory might play well with the wilder fringes of the independence movement but it will do nothing to change the mind of a single No voter.

Sturgeon is trying to reframe the Brexit debate as a conflict between a right-wing UK and a progressive Scotland. So far she is failing to do so.