Nicked Sturgeon: The Reaction
A summary of coverage of the Sturgeon arrest. Yousaf's BBC interview that shouldn't be overshadowed. Plus a new section of NoN and a new opinion poll.
I thought you might appreciate a quick round-up of the best of today’s coverage after Nicola Sturgeon’s arrest yesterday. After that, I look at Humza Yousaf’s BBC interview, which was too significant to be overshadowed. Finally, I’m launching a new section of the newsletter aimed at helping to tackle nationalist conspiracy theories and have an opinion poll in the field…
In a summary of the day’s events, which of course ended with nobody charged with any crime, Kieran Andrews in the Times reports on SNP parliamentarians openly fighting with each other over whether Sturgeon should be suspended from the party. Another good round-up in The Guardian by Libby Brooks and Severin Carrell captures the shock and division within the SNP. Chris Deerin’s roundup for the New Statesman notes that “every former SNP first minister has been arrested after leaving office.”
Meanwhile, on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, Ash Regan has called for Nicola Sturgeon to resign from the party, or be suspended, while the investigation is ongoing.
Euan McColm writes that the SNP would have hoped the fighting within the Conservative party would have helped them to move on from their troubles. But the damage is deeper than mere news management and the party now finds themselves “living in a huge glass house”:
“A great many Scots enthusiastically bought into the idea that the nationalists truly represented a new kind of politics. As the Police Scotland investigation into the SNP intensifies and Nicola Sturgeon endures the indignity of arrest and the status of suspect, the nationalists don’t look quite the paragons they’d have voters believe.”
In the Daily Record Paul Hutcheon reckons the SNP’s troubles mean the nationalist cause is dead for a generation:
“Even without the anguish of Operation Branchform, independence was receding as a major issue and disappearing into the horizon. It will be an uphill struggle to ask activists to chap on doors when the main vehicle for independence, the SNP, is in disarray. Raising money for the next independence push will be almost impossible when an earlier donations drive is subject to a fraud probe.”
Iain Macwhirter has similar thoughts, arguing that devolution is now the only game in town:
“I’m sure very few people in Scotland believe Sturgeon is corrupt, but the images of that forensic tent outside her Uddingston home, and now her arrest, will never go away. The police statement said that she was arrested “as a suspect”. Until this extraordinary police investigation that began more than two years ago is resolved, one way or another, it is difficult to see how the independence movement can move forward.”
Alex Massie in the Times also thinks that, regardless of the outcome of the investigation, this affair has tarnished Sturgeon’s legacy and may end the SNP’s dominance:
“Sturgeon’s arrest adds weight to the gathering suspicion that Scottish politics is ripe for a reset. All ages come to an end and many finish more abruptly than once seemed likely. The era of unquestioned, unchallenged, SNP supremacy may now fall into this category. The party is braced for losses at the next general election and recent opinion polls suggest the 2026 Holyrood election may also be a bruising experience for the nationalists.”
Finally, Chris Musson in the Scottish Sun has questions about the manner of Nicola Sturgeon’s arrest:
“Was there a reason Police Scotland saw fit to swoop on her husband Peter Murrell and the SNP treasurer Colin Beattie unannounced, yet Ms Surrgeon was able to be interviewed and arrested ‘by arrangement’?”
The Other Interview
While Sturgeon answering questions in a police station was the biggest story yesterday, we shouldn’t overlook her successor’s interview with Laura Kuenssberg. Yesterday confirmed that the novice First Minister is an unlucky general. He started the weekend talking about how the Conservative party’s internal problems are a “third-rate political soap opera” that makes the case for independence. Then, while he was on television saying that Nicola Sturgeon was “in a good place” it turned out his predecessor was, in fact, in a very bad place.
Good leaders make their own luck though. They are like chess grandmasters - possessing an ability to think ahead and to imagine the unintended consequences of their actions. Yousaf appears to lack that gift. Nobody expects him to have political clairvoyance, but he cannot be this strategically clumsy.
For weeks now the SNP’s position has been that there is no difference between a Labour and a Conservative government. The inevitable consequence of this is that SNP MPs should act as they have over the last few years: seeking to block a Labour government. Yousaf confirmed this was his position. Talking about thwarting Labour at every corner and every turn he said:
Yousaf: “If Labour do not want to cooperate with us, we would make life very difficult for them.”
Kussenberg: “What do you mean by that?”
Yousaf: “Well I’ve just mentioned the legislative process. I’ve mentioned budgets and so on and so forth.”
The consequence of what he is saying here is clear: vote for an SNP MP and they will block the change that a Labour government seeks to implement. Vote SNP and you’ll see Mairi Black walking side by side with Priti Patel through the no lobby to block a Labour budget. SNP candidates at the election have become a barrier to change.
And why is the new SNP leader taking such a destructive stance? Because Labour opposes re-running the 2014 referendum. But Yousaf could not have been clearer:
“at the moment, for example, it’s pretty obvious that independnce is not the consitsent settled will of the Scottish people”
Previous SNP leaders avoided speaking this truth for a reason. It begets the question: if the SNP’s preferred change isn’t what people want, what is the alternative?
After Yousaf’s interview, we know the SNP will block the change Scots want, by undermining a Labour government “at every corner and every turn” in order to demand something that they admit Scots don’t want.
One last note on another way the SNP is positioning itself against what the Scottish people want. It has been interesting to see a pivot in the language of SNP politicians towards devolution. Humza Yousaf said that “devolution is unworkable”, the Minister for Social Care says “devolution is not working”, and the Minister for Independence struck a similar note. Could this signal a return to the explicitly anti-devolution message of the SNP in the 1990s? Worth watching.
New Polling on the Way
It seems clear now that, in the post-Sturgeon world, the voting intentions of Scots is in flux.
Polling last month for More in Common found that Scottish voters were more likely to use their vote to try to defeat a part they did not like. Given the statement ‘I would vote for the best-positioned party/candidate to keep out another party/candidate that I dislike’. 22% of voters across the UK agreed with that statement but in Scotland, 26% of voters in Scotland agreed.
Inspired by this finding, I thought it would be interesting to dig a bit deeper beneath the headline numbers of general election voting intention in Scotland to explore the potential for further movement of voting intention, especially tactical voting. Thanks to paid subscribers we have commissioned some polling on this and will share the results in a few days. Watch this space.
Introducing NoNSense
The SNP politicians sharing posts about how Sturgeon’s arrest was the result of a plot by the British state is a reminder that our political debate is now awash with misinformation, myths, and madcap conspiracy theories.
Nationalism is so dangerous as it is impervious to critical analysis. It is a policy conclusion in search of evidence that fits. Where that evidence doesn’t exist its adherents will simply manufacture it. That this political movement cares so little about evidence and expert opinion is also its greatest weakness. The sceptical voters stuck in the middle of our binary constitutional debate find post-truth politics increasingly unattractive. But voters need this tendency towards falsehood to be narrated.
With this in mind today I’m launching a separate section of Notes on Nationalism, NoNsense. This will build into a searchable resource for activists. The aim here isn’t the type of fact-checking that can cause people to dig in further in defence of ridiculous views, but rather to offer alternative framing of the issue, to offer an explanation of the truth, and to tell the story of who benefits from spreading falsehoods. I’ve written a special post on how to use this new section with four tips on how to be smarter in the face of falsehoods.
The first edition is online here. It looks at a lie that won’t die: the idea that England has stolen Scottish oil wells. If there are memes out there that you would like to see a comprehensive but concise response to, let me know.