Nothing lasts forever. Not even Nicola Sturgeon’s popularity.
This is a comment. The comment expresses the writer’s positionOn Wednesday, she announced her own departure. Just a month after she firmly rejected such plans.
An era is over.
During his eight years as so-called first minister, Scotland’s head of government has had more personal support than other politicians in Great Britain could only dream of.
Sky News refers to the 52-year-old as “one of the most formidable politicians of his generation.”
In opinion polls, she has been better liked on both sides of the Scottish border than any sitting prime minister – there have been five of them – and as party leader she has been more popular than the party itself, the Scottish Nationalists, the SNP.
But now the bagpipes have a different sound. Gallup is not as generous with the praise.
Scotland’s first female head of government and longest-serving first minister is also stepping down as SNP leader, but wants to continue in politics, she says.
Are international positions more tempting? British media speculate.
She herself does not indicate anything other than that the plan is “a committed life” on the back benches of the Scottish Parliament. And she has absolutely no intention of letting go of her number one heart issue: Scottish independence.
It was the issue of secession from England that brought Nicola Sturgeon to the fore in Scottish and British politics. The same question may have contributed to her now “not taking it anymore”, which is her reason for leaving.
Declining turnout
The Prime Minister no longer has the surplus that the job, the party and the country require, she says.
With declining support for both Scottish independence, the Nationalist Party and Sturgeon herself, it is understandable.
In the last two polls from January and February this year respectively, the opponents of secession from Great Britain have increased their lead by twelve percentage points. If it were to be decided tomorrow, 56 percent of Scots would say no to independence, 44 percent would say yes.
It is identical to the result from the referendum in 2014.
It is also identical to the opinion polls in 2020, but with the opposite sign. Then 56 percent of Scottish voters stated that they wanted to break with the British, while 44 percent wanted continued union.
The question of Scottish independence has not only been about secession itself, but also whether Scotland can unilaterally demand separation – indeed, whether the Scots can even hold a referendum on their own fate.
Nicola Sturgeon has believed, with the greatest of course, that that authority rests with the Scottish Parliament, because the association with the British in 1707 was a voluntary union. Consequently, it must be voluntary to step out of it as well. She has therefore refused to deal with the objections from Downing Street.
Tactically, it has paid off.
Transsexual rapist
Every time Boris Johnson attacked the independence movement, the SNP went up a percentage point in the polls.
Even when the UK Supreme Court last year put its foot down and said the Scottish Parliament could not hold a referendum on secession without the permission of the Parliament in London, it strengthened Sturgeon’s position.
And when she next declared that the election in 2024 would be one in fact referendum on Scottish independence, and only that, by the SNP going to the election with only this one issue on its agenda, she appeared more or less invulnerable. And unbeatable.
As long as it lasted. Now it’s all the secession in play.
In politics, a lot happens over the course of weeks and months. In Nicola Sturgeon’s case, she was overtaken by several controversies. Among other things, a new law on gender reassignment created wedding rings. There she would stand on the progressive side of history.
But the radical legislation in Scotland was refused approval by the House of Commons at Westminster.
And when it also coincided with media coverage of a criminal casewhere a rapist claimed transsexual orientation and demanded serving time in a women’s prison – which he initially granted – she became embroiled in one of the most polarizing debates of our time.
She did not come out of it well.
Demand for departure
The trans issue has also divided the SNP. At the weekend said four out of ten voters that Sturgeon should resign with immediate effect.
In addition, her husband is under investigation for having given the SNP a private crisis loan of more than one and a half million kroner, which exceeds an upper limit for what individuals can give to a political party. What is unclear is whether the money is a donation or an interest-free loan with a long term.
Nicola Sturgeon claims she is not resigning because of individual cases, but after an overall assessment. She has nothing more to give.
That’s probably right.
Ironic, nevertheless, how a politician who for 25 years has stood in the fight for national identity shared by identity politics.
