Nicola Sturgeon is discarded, having served her purpose for the British Establishment once she obtained the UK Supreme Court judgment that Scotland could not hold a referendum on Independence.
That fight was deliberately thrown by Sturgeon’s unionist Lord Advocate. After almost nine years of leading Independence supporters into a whole series of blind alleys, with promise after promise broken to deliver a referendum, and mandate after mandate squandered, she appears to have shattered the Independence movement.
Throughout this nine years, Sturgeon was sustained and promoted by the unionist media.
She pretended she wanted Independence, and they pretended to attack her for it.
Meanwhile Sturgeon was given an extraordinarily easy ride over the real failings of her government. The achievements of Alex Salmond in building an extremely efficient reputation for the SNP’s ability to manage the business of government, were all knocked back.
The collusion of the unionist media in hiding Sturgeon’s role in the attempt to frame Alex Salmond on false charges – a conspiracy orchestrated from her office and her husband’s office – showed the Sturgeon/Unionist axis in operation.
Salmond of course was rightly perceived by the unionists as a much more genuine threat to the union. They had a joint interest with Sturgeon in putting him away.
The main cause of bad government performance was Sturgeon’s compulsion to sideline all people of real talent in the SNP, and surround herself only with the extremely mediocre, who would never challenge her.
No leader genuinely concerned with the good of the country would ever appoint Shirley-Anne Somerville to be a minister.
Scotland has slid down the international tables, in healthcare, in education, in substance abuse, in almost every important area. The ferries debacle has been a disaster for the island communities.
Much of this has been a result of the SNP gradualists walking into the devolution trap. Devolution forces the government in Holyrood to try to mitigate the effects of Tory policies, with resources constrained by Tory austerity and hands tied by neo-con fiscal policy.
Devolution is a dead end filled with poison gas. Sturgeon’s lack of urgency to escape from it was inexplicable.
Sturgeon’s place in history will be as the woman who saved the Union in its hour of maximum danger – the moment the UK left the European Union, against the will of the large majority of Scottish people expressed in a referendum.
Having saved the Union then, Sturgeon went on to obtain the Supreme Court ruling against a referendum and subsequently shattered the Independence movement over identity politics.
She succeeded, by refusal to listen sympathetically to concerns of others, to unleash a wave of hatred towards trans people from those who had previously given the question not a moment of thought.
The contrast is astonishing between her softly softly attitude to Scotland’s Independence, where doubters were to be gently persuaded over decades, and her drastic attitude to gender reform, where doubters were to be condemned as misogynists and racists.
Sturgeon was a great boon to the unionists. Whether as useful idiot or as traitor is something history will decide. My money is on the latter.
But after the Supreme Court judgement, the UK Establishment did not need her any more. All that soft soap treatment disappeared. They started to seriously question her, on all points.
There has been a huge change in press tone towards Sturgeon since the Supreme Court judgment. The UK establishment believe they no longer need her to hold back the Independence movement.
I suspect much more tellingly, the Establishment has also finally taken off the gloves over the missing £600,000, that was donated to to a “ring-fenced” fund to campaign in the Indyref2 that Sturgeon did not deliver.
The money disappeared into the SNP’s accounts and where it went is not clear.
I could not understand why Sturgeon blatantly lied at the press conference last week, when asked by Tom Gordon of the Herald when she first knew that her husband had lent £107,000 to the SNP.
She replied she could not recall, and sought to distance herself from the loan, saying he used “his resources”.
Now it is a strange marriage where the husband lends £107,000 without telling the wife. But it is not impossible.
However it is impossible that the leader of the SNP was not told that the party was lent £107,000. Whoever it was from, let alone her own husband.
But I could see no reason that Peter Murrell should not lend the party the money. It was not illegal to do so and arguably a good thing to do. Why on earth would Nicola pretend she didn’t know?
This only started to make sense to me yesterday, when I learnt that Murrell made the loan the day after he was interviewed by the police about the missing £600,000.
No wonder she wanted to distance herself from it, and the timing.
Numerous sources have reported in the last few days that Police Scotland have now been given the go ahead by the Crown Office to pursue a criminal case over the missing money.
That seems the most likely explanation for the timing of her resignation today.
The good news is that, if my sources are correct, the £600,000 question is going to make the coronation of the Angus Robertson family collective as devolutionist party leaders somewhat difficult.
So farewell Nicola Sturgeon. You served the Union well. Now they don’t need you any more and you have been tossed away.
They won’t get you that UN job either (all UN posts need to be agreed with the candidate’s member state). The Establishment is both ruthless and ungrateful. I suspect the protection over the Salmond affair will disappear too.
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I like how the press are spinning Sturgeons departure as the death of the idea of Scottish independence as if she is or was the only person pushing (or rather not in Sturgeons case) for it
The media framing is obviously aimed at trying to make that – their desired outcome – a reality.
Senior SNP figures are being quoted as saying, independence is off the agenda for at least five years. Don’t these nameless ‘senior’ figures owe it to members to come out and state that belief openly, rather than doing it anonymously?
Sadly, I fear Craig is 100% correct in his analysis, and at some point after 2014’s vote, Sturgeon and other ‘senior’ figures went cool on the idea of independence. Maybe they couldn’t reconcile the economic arguments anymore, with oil prices dropping and the unresolved currency issue. But couldn’t tell the membership? Everything since has probably been a pro-independence pantomime, aimed at keeping the electoral gravy train on track.
Emails and any other information could offer vital clues.
Yes – it looks that way.
The English Tory Parliament has basically knocked back a Scottish Parliament decision and we have a particular example of how Devolution works ( or doesn’t) when decisions are concretely made.
Just as the actuality of the democratic relationship is revealed Sturgeon walks off.
No great fan of Sturgeon but compared to the Tories she was at least ……… not a Tory (Starmer isn’t neither for now).
As an outsider I like the cut of Cherry who seems to be straight up and anyone else appears to me at least to be a yeh sayer so it’s up to you to sort the matter out and best of luck.
But ( and we are back to not a Tory yet Starmer) who’s current Labour Party can supposedly get an in due to Sturgeon’s resignation according to the breathless media.
I honestly have no reason to think this outcome will come true.
Any way good luck to you all , speaking as a lefty Englishman who thinks that Brexit was and is suicidal and leaving this lot of crazy Randist madmen/mad womenTories behind cannot be wrong.
“Throughout this nine years, Sturgeon was sustained and promoted by the unionist media.
She pretended she wanted Independence, and they pretended to attack her for it.”
No wonder you put the second sentence in bold as it really is a great summation of what happened with Sturgeon and the unionist media.
I always used to try to point that out to people.
The easy ride Sturgeon got from the unionist media (especially when contrasted with Salmond reign) was one the biggest clues / giveaways that Sturgeon was not actually on our side.
Her acolytes though managed to convince themselves the opposite was true. I have never seen such willful myopia over a political leader in my life than I saw with Nicola Sturgeon. Grown men and women totally seduced by an obvious sham, and they still are… even now after all this his broke (well on here and wings at least it ‘broke’).
You have written some gems over the years Craig but this is one of my favourites for sure.
Is it fair comment to say that many SNP supporters simply ‘tolerated’ the party?
This despite grave misgivings about many of its senior ministers, policy direction, and a personal dislike of Nicola Sturgeon’s stroppy, overly defensive, dictatorial leadership style. Her embrace of neoliberalism, and fist-bumping antics with neocons, as annoying as her woke grandstanding.
Above all, supporters wanted independence, and the SNP seemed like the only viable vehicle to deliver it. If they remove that prospect, harsh electoral realities will pay these unloved careerists a visit.
Hi Mac, good post. I have had countless discussions with SNP supporters – receiving quite a few rebukes, to put it mildly – since Sturgeon’s hesitance to further independence became clear in 2016.
– I questioned why she seemed intent on voiding her own mandate by addressing Scotland being taken out of the EU against its will, by trying to overturn the Brexit vote and keep England and Wales IN the EU against theirs.
– I also asked why she was given such a relatively easy ride by a mainstream media who are not only unanimously Unionist (even the outlets who insist Tories are the scum of the Earth and/or Brexit is economic suicide) while the cause of independence hasn’t won a single ounce of reprieve from them. Not one ounce.
– I also asked on numerous occasions why it was left to grassroots campaigners like Martin Keating to do the SNP’s job for them and take up the legal fight to establish the right to self-determination.
I still await rational responses to any of those and I fear the SNP voters still refuse to see the party for what it has become. History will most certainly not judge Sturgeon and Murrell kindly, regardless of what transpires from Agent McDonald’s emails.
Agreed, Chris. I have spoken to several older SNP members, and they are all totally unwilling to apportion any blame to Wee Nikla. They even blamed Salmond, who committed the heinous crime of being innocent of a series of perjured and trumped up charges. I now believe that a large number of SNP members are fundamentally stupid and naive.
The “easy ride” she got from the unionist media?? I take it you’ve never seen the Express or the Mail? Or the Telegraph? Or the Times?
Which country quiz…
The chief executive of the party in power is the husband of the outgoing leader. He’s overseeing the process of selecting a successor. This despite facing questions himself, as part of an ongoing police investigation into £600k of missing ‘ring-fenced’ campaign funds from party coffers. Three treasurers have resigned. after being refused access to the party accounts by this chief executive.
This has to be some country in Central America, right? Or maybe Africa, Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe? Has to be Zimbabwe?
Sounds more like Scotland in the C16th, although wasn’t the husband of Mary Queen of Scots murdered? Watch this space….
For once Sturgeon’s absolutely clear about the pronouns : if someone is going down for this ring-fenced clusterfcuk, and it’s either him or her. Then it’s definitely going to be HIM!
Kenny Farq et al could have buried NS over the farce that was the Salmond trial and HR investigation. Why didn’t arch unionist hacks who could have put the independence cause back for years not follow through on this? I don’t think Sherlock Holmes would have been required to figure that one out.
Indeed door was wide open for them. They’d have finished her there and then if they’d thought she was even halfway genuine.
It is a revolving door, one shill out, another shill in. She always was a political puppet toy for war criminal and national traitor Blair. Blair was recently highly rewarded for the devolution parliaments why?
Because devolution was a lie, it was in fact a diversion to keep the union together. Sabotage, gas lighting, nefarious Machiavellian manipulation. I was onto Salmond and Stergeon long ago. The last inde ref was a blatant act of sabotage to put an end to the agenda. All the resources are being sucked out of the nation for peanuts. They get the gold and we get the shaft. The enemy is not only in Westminster.
Scotland must make a stand very soon or, roll over and rename the nation, and flag, to England… soon to be India or America.
Interesting fact that nobody points out is that, Scotland was founded as a nation half a century before England was founded as a nation.
Dear Sir
I don’t have the eloquence of a lawyer’s rhetoric nor the professional capacity to twist the truth or expand on fabrication of the propaganda of the British Establishment.
So I wish you well on your War with the powers that be and hope that Scotland will attain its Independent Self Government for the benefit of its people.
I just watched your speech on being released from prison and hope you are sincere in your efforts to establish an education system that will help the indigenous people of our country.
You need to educate the voters on a definitive Economic Development Strategy to cover all aspects of Government.
Sorry, do not want to bore you.
Kindest Regards, Joe
Exactly, Craig. When Swinney et al accepted the GERS snapshot of the current economic mismanagement by London as being a prediction of our indy future, I realised that we had been infiltrated by unionists. It surprised me that no one in our party questioned whether the huge increase in membership after 2014 might just contain some disruptive planted elements. Since then, Sturgeon has stalled at every turn, taken us up a cul de sac, sold off our renewables for a pittance, and instituted a reign of bullying and intolerance to crush all opposition. The most revealing and disgusting thing is how quickly so many of our MPs and MSPs supported her, and turned on Salmond. She is a deeply seedy little nonentity, and I have no doubt that she is, and has for some time, been in the pay and pocket of Westminster.
Nicola Sturgeon’s husband has been charged with embezzelment of SNP monies