Nicola Sturgeon was made – and destroyed – by independence

The greatest trick an ideologue can ever pull off is convincing people they are not, in fact, an ideologue. But Nicola Sturgeon was just as much an ideologue as her predecessor. In some ways, indeed, her convictions eclipsed Alex Salmond’s. 

Whereas he did not join the SNP until he was an undergraduate at St Andrews university, Sturgeon signed up for the national cause while still a teenager. In all the years which followed, her faith never faltered. Regardless of circumstance, political moment, or fashion, she remained guided by her unfalsifiable conviction that Scotland’s future lay as an independent state. Everything else might change; this never did or even could. Sturgeon was an existential nationalist, not a utilitarian one.

Once fixed, Sturgeon’s mind was rarely shifted or subject to even minor alteration.