Nicola Sturgeon has never been all that bothered about the remit of her devolved government and the parameters of its responsibilities. So exactly no one was surprised when she popped up this morning with another speech on independence. It comes as part of her ramp-up to a referendum which she insists she will hold next October, despite Westminster refusing permission. Today’s speech unveiled the second in a series of papers making the case for independence.
What might have surprised casual observers of Scottish politics is just how closely the address resembled a party conference speech in its unabashedly partisan attacks on the Tories and Labour. Opining that the Tories appeared to be in a ‘political death spiral’, Sturgeon said:
The change of Tory leader seems virtually certain to be accompanied by a shift even further to the right. That means a shift even further from the mainstream of Scottish opinion and values. A race to the bottom on tax, cuts to public services and support for families. More posturing over Brexit, hurting businesses and trade. Abandonment of the fight against climate change. And a toxic — indeed, wholly manufactured — culture war, putting equalities and human rights protections at risk.
We may be just a few days into this Tory leadership contest but it is already crystal clear that the issues Scotland is focussed on — tackling child poverty, supporting NHS recovery, building a fairer economy, and making a just transition to Net Zero — will be hindered, not helped, by whoever becomes Prime Minister in the weeks ahead.
She then turned her guns on Labour. Sturgeon has been getting stuck into Labour more than the Tories of late because she fears the election of a Labour government would see support for Scottish independence, still struggling to reach 50 per cent, comprehensively crumble. Today she said:
These days, where the Tories go, Labour seems obliged to follow. So scared is Labour of Tory attacks from the right, and so obsessed with neutralising rather than standing up to these attacks, that they are becoming a pale imitation of the Tories rather than a real alternative. That has implications for the direction of the UK as a whole, and across the spectrum of social and economic policy, but here’s what it means for Scotland. This is Labour’s pitch to Scotland in a nutshell: To help Labour win in England, Scotland must suck up what we did not vote for. Brexit, and all of its dire consequences must be accepted, with no possible route back into the EU or even the single market.
But what we did vote for, what we have repeatedly voted for — an independence referendum and the possibility of a better alternative — will be blocked by Labour in all circumstances and for all time. Just as in 2014, they are teaming up with the Tories to frustrate the will of the Scottish people. Earlier this week, we even had the grotesque spectacle of a Labour MP actually bragging about councillors in Edinburgh being suspended for refusing to back the Tories over the SNP. Labour’s positions are nothing to do with the interests or the democratic wishes of Scotland. They are cynical political calculations.
All the usual political knockabout, no? The kind of thing you see at Westminster every day? Not quite. Sturgeon was speaking not as leader of the SNP but as First Minister of Scotland. She delivered the speech from her official podium in Bute House, her grace-and-favour townhouse in Edinburgh. The speech was streamed live by the Scottish Government and an accompanying press release published on the Scottish Government website. The pro-independence prospectus Sturgeon was promoting was prepared by civil servants assigned to the Scottish Government, civil servants who saw fit to include the following in the document itself:
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people living in Scotland today have been – and are currently – governed by Westminster Governments that do not reflect our political choices.
Tory leadership contenders are setting out their stalls on how they would govern differently from what has gone before. They might want to spell out what they would do differently about devolution. Devolved institutions and UK civil servants are being used by the SNP to campaign for the dissolution of the United Kingdom and to launch taxpayer-funded partisan attacks on Nicola Sturgeon’s political opponents. Are the Tories genuinely content to allow this to continue? Have they given up on the Union entirely?
Comments