Are these the end days of Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister?

Alex Salmond's intervention against his former deputy is pertinent - they used to be closer than gnats in a plague.

Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, The Independent

This article was first published in The Stornoway Gazette.

At the beginning of the year, I predicted that Nicola Sturgeon would not be the First Minister by the end of 2023. Here we are, not even halfway through February, and her perch is looking decidedly shaky. 

Her Gender Reform Bill - which is not supported by the majority of the public, which caused rifts in her own party and has teed up a legal confrontation with the Westminster Government - has, seemingly, removed the firm foundation on which the SNP leadership has rested for years. Combine that with general fatigue, which overcomes any Government after so long in ‘leadership”, and dissatisfaction among the public - best exhibited by ongoing strike action, including by teachers who are going to target the First Minister’s own constituency in the next few weeks - and you begin to see the First Minister as a lightbulb in a power cut, and she’s at the flickering stage. Next comes the pop and blackout. 

Alex Salmond has launched an all-out attack on Sturgeon over the Gender Reform Bill saying her position will be untenable if she doesn’t park the fight with Westminster over the controversial reforms. He’s accused her of “stumbling incoherence” over the issue and suggested people are laughing at her. His intervention against his former deputy is pertinent - they used to be closer than gnats in a plague.

Salmond has also taken issue with the latest polling which indicates a dip in support for independence. In a clip on Twitter, where he was speaking at a Burns supper for the Alba party in Dundee, he said: “Thirty years of gradually building, building, building until we get independence over 50 per cent and then thrown away with some self-indulgent nonsense, which even if it was right, which it isnae, would hardly be tactically the most astute manoeuvre when we’re meant to be taking Scotland to its next date with destiny.”

Research carried out by YouGov between January 23rd amd 26th found that backing for an independence referendum has dropped. It now stands at 52 per cent among people who voted Yes in 2014, a fall of 13 points since December. New polling by IPSOS shows the First Minister’s own ratings are down, that the Scottish Government’s performance is failing and that the majority of Scottish people back the UK Government blocking the Gender Reform Bill. This last point is fascinating - the phoney war the SNP drums up by imagining some cruel divide between Westminster and Holyrood doesn’t wash with the public who have their eyes open. It means she can’t frame the fight as ‘Scottish democracy versus London overreaching rule’, because people don’t buy it. 

Gender is without doubt the issue on which Sturgeon’s leadership has crumbled - which is, in some ways, odd given the catalogue of other failures she’s currently overseeing. The ferries disaster, teachers’ strikes and education failing in general, the economy, the NHS. Don’t forget the Gazette’s reporting from September, too: “The Scottish Government has cut Comhairle nan Eilean Siar’s funding by almost three times the national average, hitting the islands with “the largest decrease in revenue support grant of all 32 local authorities”.” The Comhairle has many faults for which it should be brought to task - but the cuts inflicted on it by the Scottish Government are unforgivable. Have you asked your local councillors, and your SNP MP and MSP, to take the Government to task for the butchering of services in the islands? 

Elsewhere, The Times reports that the SNP broke election finance rules on three occasions by failing to quickly declare a loan of nearly £110,000 from Nicola Sturgeon’s husband. Her husband is Peter Murrell whose job title is chief executive of the Scottish National Party. There have been huge concerns raised about financial transparency at the SNP, an issue which was put to Sturgeon at a press conference this week - the same press conference at which she was questioned over her use of pronouns for a convicted rapist (she had used female pronouns and got tangled in quite the mess.) Altogether, Sturgeon seemed angry and frustrated at the corner into which she has boxed herself. 

She’s at the end of the road. She’s done what she can do and is now, quite simply, done. The SNP is bordering on ungovernable. This week, the Scottish Government Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville - who should be in a room negotiating with Scotland’s teaching unions - appeared on The Sunday Show on BBC Scotland where she said that the SNP gender rebels should consider if they were 'comfortable' in the party. SNP MP Alyn Smith had previously posed the same challenge. Party discipline has capitulated, respect for Sturgeon has dissipated, she has wandered far from the public’s own direction of travel while failing to deliver on the basics that are required of a Government. Her dream of independence is slowly drifting even further out of reach. Long-term Government malaise is rife. Government is tough, leading is challenging. Begin to question who is up to the task next.