The day it rained on Nicola’s Indyref 2 parade!
WAS that it? Nicola Sturgeon’s muchheralded next steps on securing Indyref 2 were supposed to be so incendiary that she had to shift the announcement from midweek to Brexit day on Friday in order to insert herself into the main news cycle of the day.
They were supposed to be so cunningly cunning that the Prime Minister would rue the day he told the First Minister: ‘No. You’ll have had your referendum’.
They were supposed to be so dramatic that they would quell the dissent and disquiet that has spread from the SNP foot soldiers to those elected representatives in both Holyrood and Westminster who fancy replacing Ms Sturgeon at the top of the Nationalist tree.
In the event, those next steps amounted to the SNP leader saying she wouldn’t rule out a wildcat referendum... then doing just that. Pledging to ask the Electoral Commission to retest the question that was used last time, spend more money on leaflets and an advert and – presumably because the citizens assembly hasn’t come up with the answers the SNP wanted – set up a new constitutional convention.
If the speech was aimed at calming the party faithful – and, let’s face it, it wasn’t aimed at anyone outside the tribe – I fear it may have failed. In fact, worse than that, I fear it may have passed most people by.
In the run-up to 2014, every cough and whisper made by then First Minister Alex Salmond regarding the referendum was carried by dozens of broadcasters, both foreign and domestic.
So tired of Ms Sturgeon’s repeated refrain that independence is just over the next hill, not a single 24-hour news channel even bothered to carry this pronouncement live. Brutal.
Frantically searching the television to no avail, I had to resort to an internet feed on the Scottish page of a news website to even hear the speech at all. It would never have happened to Alex.
But it didn’t matter that I came in late, the boilerplate grievance was just the same old songs being sung to the same old tunes.
The outrage that Ms Sturgeon hadn’t been handed the giftwrapped referendum that she purports to crave was compounded by the SNP’s general election result in December.
I would love it if – just once – a journalist would ask Ms Sturgeon why returning 47 Westminster seats is reason for an independence referendum now, when there was no suggestion that holding only six was not a reason to disbar one in 2014. It’s almost as if that is not the measure.
Another of the complaints was that it was a disgrace that Holyrood didn’t already hold the powers over a referendum so that Ms Sturgeon could personally call a vote every second Tuesday until she – finally – gets the answer she wants and then, presumably, referendums would be banned.
Well, there is a simple reason why the powers over a referendum do not reside in Holyrood – and Ms Sturgeon is as culpable as anyone for that. After the 2014 vote there was a cross-party commission to review which powers should be held at Westminster, which at Holyrood and which would be shared between Scotland’s two parliaments.
THE SNP sent some big-hitters – Deputy First Minister John Swinney and Deputy Presiding Officer Linda Fabiani – to be their delegates. The Nationalists did not argue for power over future referendums to be transferred and they willingly signed up to the deal which meant that constitutional affairs remain reserved. A position endorsed by Ms Sturgeon herself.
The biggest grievance of all was, of course, Brexit.
Ms Sturgeon admitted during the election that even if Brexit were halted, she would still push for another Indyref – even though she says she’s only doing it now because of the Brexit vote.
Never mind that figures published by her own Government last week show that Scotland’s trade to the rest of the UK is more than three times as important as trade to the EU, and any difficulties Brexit throws up for Britain would be of a different order of magnitude to a Scotland leaving the UK.
In the Q&A session after her speech, the First Minister was asked about recognising that there would be no referendum in 2020 after all.
She replied that she was focused on delivering independence, not an ‘empty gesture’.
In a week when the SNP at Holyrood refused to debate health, education or justice in favour of a rammy over the flying of the EU flag, it was a bold move to dismiss the power of an empty gesture.
She didn’t even blush.
WHAT sort of idiots target babies? We’ve seen strange targeting of Edinburgh tourist attractions this week, including glue being smeared on a nappy change table at the National Museum of Scotland – which stuck a child’s sleep suit to the table. The Festival Theatre has also been targeted and nobody knows why or what motivations are behind the incidents. No matter the reasoning, this is imbecilic and wrong. I hope the police catch the perpetrators and throw the book at them.