Sturgeon walked tightrope
First Minister’s balancing act for Remain camp How Labour struggled to keep on message with its traditional support
LESS than 24 hours before the polls opened, Nicola Sturgeon visited Edinburgh Airport to deliver her final campaign message.
The First Minister said a Remain vote would protect 300,000 jobs in Scotland that are directly or indirectly linked to EU membership. Staying in the EU would guarantee continued investment from UK’s 27 fellow members states, she added.
In a plea backed by airport boss Gordon Dewar, another staunch EU supporter, she said: “Being part of Europe is good for Scotland’s economy – and is key to our future growth and prosperity. EU membership means access to the world’s biggest single market, with 500 million people to sell our goods and services to – creating jobs and making Scotland an attractive place to invest.”
This was the positive case Ms Sturgeon had hoped to present throughout the bruising six-week campaign. But the narrowing of the polls forced her to adopt a more pugnacious approach.
In her eve-of-poll message, she warned a Brexit vote would hand new economic powers to an increasingly right-wing Conservative Government that she claimed was “just itching to use a Leave vote as an excuse for even further austerity cuts”.
“By uniting to vote Remain in big numbers, people in Scotland can protect the huge economic benefit and jobs our membership of Europe brings and make clear that we reject putting even more of our economy under the control of a right-wing Tory government,” she said.
Ms Sturgeon, indisputably the mostimportantvoiceinthe debate in Scotland, has earned praise and criticism for her role in the campaign. Her allies in the Remain camp will thank her for being the first leading figure in the campaign to challenge the Leave side’s warnings about immigration head-on.
In a powerful message, only later picked up by Labour, she said Conservative spending cuts, not migrants, should be blamed for pressure on public services. But the SNP’s refusal to endorse fully the Remain campaign’s economic case for EU membership – Ms Sturgeon described Treasury warnings of job losses as “overblown” – prompted claims the Nationalists were harming the chances of a strong In vote.
Alan Johnson, the former Labour home secretary and leader of the Stronger In group, urged the party to stop “carping” and get behind the effort.
Scottish Liberal Democrats’ leader Willie Rennie went further, accusing Alex Salmond – who labelled the Treasury warnings “apocalyptic” scaremongering – of “behaving like a not-so-secret agent for the Leave camp” and “risking Brexit”.
From the start, the SNP’s Labour and Tory Remain allies feared many SNP supporters would ignore Ms Sturgeon’s pro-EU pitch and vote Leave in the hope of triggering a second independence referendum.
Since the Yes campaign’s defeat in 2014, Ms Sturgeon has held up Brexit, against the wishes of a majority of Scots voters, as a possible justification for a second independence poll.
With opinion polls predicting a comfortable win for Remain in Scotland, the concern was many Nationalists would take the result for granted and use their votes to boost the Brexit tally.
Those fears grew as Scottish Vote Leave focused its campaign on a promise that Brexit would
‘‘ If the vote is closer than expected, the criticisms levelled at her over the past few weeks are sure to re-emerge
bring new powers to Holyrood, and as Jim Sillars, the former SNP deputy leader, toured the country arguing that leaving the EU was the surest way to deliver independence.
It is a scenario Ms Sturgeon – who wants to avoid an independence referendum on the back of Brexit – took seriously. In the latter stages of the campaign she appealed directly to independence supporters, telling them there was “no logic” in voting Leave to secure a second independence referendum.
However, she risked undermining her own message when she confirmed a re-run of 2014 would be considered in the event of Brexit, and even revealed an independent Scotland, staying in the EU, might use the euro single currency.
If Scotland returns a solid Remain vote, the First Minister can take credit for saying the right things to the right people at the right time. But if the vote is closer than expected, the criticisms levelled at her are sure to re-emerge.