EUAN MCCOLM:
The First Minister promised a new way of governing. Now she seems to be harking back to the grievances of the past...
WHEN Alex Salmond resumed leadership of the SNP in 2004, his spin doctors went into overdrive. Their message was simple, if rather far-fetched: he had changed. The Alex Salmond who had led the SNP until 2001 had a reputation among members of the political press pack for being arrogant and hectoring. He was, I’m afraid, considered something of a bully.
So when he came back to save the Nationalists from oblivion, his team wisely set about trying to persuade sceptics that he was a new man. I recall one SNP spinner telling me Mr Salmond had undergone an awakening, that he had recognised the flaws in his personality that so often made him such a divisive figure.
For a while it seemed the SNP leader had learned from past mistakes. Between 2004-07, while in opposition, Mr Salmond was a model of positivity and optimism. The old gripe and grievance of the SNP was replaced by a new upbeat message. The Nationalists stood up for Scotland; they dared to dream of bigger and better things. It was certainly a refreshing change from their previous strategy of whining, relentlessly, about the English.
But Mr Salmond hadn’t really changed. We know that, now. When the SNP won its second election and first overall majority at Holyrood in 2011, the veneer of bonhomie began to crack. By the final weeks of the 2014 independence referendum campaign, the real Alex Salmond was back, in all his ranting, snarling glory. Anyone who questioned his cock and bull story about the benefits of breaking up the United Kingdom could expect to feel his wrath. Even now, Mr Salmond rages over the defeat of two years ago.
Nicola Sturgeon, when she succeeded Mr Salmond as SNP leader and First Minister, was supposed to change the Nationalist tone yet again. Calmer, more reasonable and a damned sight more likeable than her predecessor, she promised she would govern for all Scots, including the majority who voted No in 2014.
INDEPENDENCE, though still the raison d’être of the SNP, was kicked into the long grass. Instead, Miss Sturgeon would be concentrating on the day-to-day business of good government. There was no mention of a second referendum in the 2015 General Election manifesto and the SNP stopped short of promising one in the run-up to this year’s Holyrood poll, saying only that, if Scots wished for a second referendum, they could have it.
The loss of the SNP’s overall majority at Holyrood made the prospect of a second referendum less likely still and, for a few weeks, it truly seemed as if the First Minister really did want to get on with government.
Miss Sturgeon explained that her priority was education and put her able deputy, John Swinney, in charge. With her full support, he would do whatever was necessary to ensure that Scottish children began to excel again.
This shift of Scottish Government priorities took place in May but it might as well have been a lifetime ago. The result of the EU referendum has seen to that. Since the UK voted in June to leave the European club, Miss Sturgeon has spoken of little else but independence.
Since a majority of Scots had voted to remain in the EU, a second independence referendum was now back on the table. Of course, because she is reassuring and reasonable, Miss Sturgeon insisted this was simply a way of protecting the wishes of Scots. But the truth is that the First Minister’s actions since the EU referendum result have been the purest opportunism.
And it’s not just Miss Sturgeon who’s ratcheting up the rhetoric on another independence referendum. Last week Angus Robertson, launching his bid to become the next deputy leader of the SNP, said Scotland now stood on the brink of independence. His message to party members was that one last heave would see the end of the UK and the establishment of the Scottish Utopia. But reality has the unerring ability of trampling one’s dreams and it seems this is now happening to Miss Sturgeon, Mr Robertson and all those Nationalists who convinced themselves that Scots would be so outraged by the EU referendum result that they would move, en masse, to the pro-independence camp.
A new poll shows most Scots still wish to remain in the UK. Feelings of Britishness have trumped any emotional connection to Europe. The longed-for pro-independence majority has not materialised – no doubt to the great disappointment of the First Minister, who has expended a great deal of energy on telling Scots they should be livid at being dragged out of the EU.
What a pickle Miss Sturgeon is in. The pro-independence minority which she had kept on a low simmer is now boiling over with righteous indignation about Europe. These Nationalists now expect a second referendum, sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, the pro-UK majority, having been told that the SNP was ready now to get on with looking after the things that mattered to them, see the same sort of grievance-hunting that made Alex Salmond such a turn-off.
The SNP was always taking a great deal for granted when it assumed Scots would feel more loyal to the EU than the UK. Miss Sturgeon has, it seems, allowed herself to get caught up in the moment and to over-promise. It is, it would pain the First Minister to recognise, precisely the sort of thing her predecessor was so adept at doing.
SOURCES close to the First Minister have always been quite clear that she would only consider a second independence referendum if polls consistently showed a majority of 60 per cent in favour of the end of the UK. Victory for the Brexit campaign has not achieved this. Miss Sturgeon had done an excellent job of keeping her more rabid supporters in check. Now, like Mr Salmond at his most bullish, she has fired them up again.
The SNP, if it is ever to win independence, will have to persuade a majority of Scots that its plans are sensible. With her reckless rush to get the idea of a second referendum back on the agenda, Miss Sturgeon will have done little to convince cautious No voters that she is fundamentally different from Mr Salmond.
Right now, she sounds awfully, painfully, just like him.
She now sounds awfully, painfully, just like him