Clear message that Sturgeon must heed

IT was the sobering wake-up call the Nationalists so badly needed – exposing their referendum strategy as a pipe dream.

In clinical language, Boris Johnson carefully spelt out why he would be turning down the SNP’s plea for powers to hold a fresh poll. Those heady hours after the General Election, when Nicola Sturgeon celebrated winning 47 seats, now seem something of a distant memory.

Cold, hard reality dictates that the proposed Scexit vote this year simply won’t happen – but somehow the SNP’s supporters must be placated.

That’s why we saw Brexit Minister Mike Russell absurdly claiming ‘indyref 2020’ was still possible, when he knows that it’s not. Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil claimed Scots were being held hostage and that Unionists should be called ‘Hostagists’.

These panicked interventions show Mr Johnson’s letter – as concise as it was devastating – has had the desired effect.

The message may have been unpalatable for Miss Sturgeon and her colleagues, but it couldn’t have been any clearer: ask as many times as you like, but the answer will stay the same.

There was another warning for the First Minister in the conclusion of the PM’s letter – when he highlighted some of the myriad deficiencies of the SNP administration. He pointed out that ‘another independence referendum would continue the political stagnation that Scotland has seen for the past decade, with Scottish schools, hospitals and jobs again left behind because of a campaign to separate the UK’. How heartening for Unionists to see the SNP held to account in far more trenchant terms than Mr Johnson’s predecessors ever managed.

Now that her hopes of a rerun of the 2014 vote have been dashed again, it’s time for Miss Sturgeon to accept that she has wasted enough time on her party’s doomed constitutional project – and get back to the day job.