My initial reaction to Alex Salmond’s revelations was
to be underwhelmed. The rather long, boring legalistic text that he intends to
submit to the Inquiry has nothing juicy. We don’t find out that Nicola Sturgeon
knew about Alex Salmond’s behaviour in 2014. We don’t find out that she has
been leading a rather scandalous double life. We don’t find out that she has
shot someone’s dog.
It is hard to get too worked up about whether she had
a meeting with Salmond on March 29th, 2018 but forgot about it and thought
instead that her first meeting with him about this issue was on April 2nd. The distinction between SNP Party business and
Scottish Government business is important, but it is inevitable that
politicians mix them up sometimes. Sturgeon does it all the time. She even
conflates Scotland with the SNP.
We already know that the Scottish Government made a
mess of its investigation of Salmond, because it had to pay him £512,250, but
while wasting public money is important the amount involved is the cost of a
large house in Aberdeen and is trivial in the context of the Scottish
Government’s budget.
But there is one thing that is not underwhelming about
Salmond’s revelations. The most striking thing is that he clearly intends her
to resign not merely as First Minister, but also as SNP leader. The reason for this
is that his text forms a detailed legal attempt to prove that Sturgeon broke
the Ministerial Code. If this can be proved, then Sturgeon would be expected to
resign.
There are different sorts of political resignation.
Sometimes a minister resigns just because his department has made some horrible
error. It need not be the case that the minister even knew about it, but we
expect them to take responsibility. Often after a few months such a minister
returns. This sort of resignation excites the political press, but no one else.
If it can be shown that Sturgeon mislead Parliament or
the Inquiry, then she would be expected to resign. This is what Salmond is
trying to achieve. But it would hardly be a Profumo affair. It would not be the
sort of scandal that is remembered decades after. Politician lied. Well don’t
they all.
If this is all that Salmond has, then the likelihood
is that Sturgeon will survive. Resignations are as much a matter of politics as
anything else. Until the Scottish public begins to demand Sturgeon’s
resignation, then she will be able to survive embarrassing revelations about misleading
Parliament, because she will turn it into a he said she said argument. Salmond
is going to need proof and it become completely clear without doubt that
Sturgeon lied before anything drastic happens. But Sturgeon will have a counter
argument and counter witnesses. So, my guess is that Salmond will have to
provide more to bring her down.
But this is where it gets interesting. Why does he
want to bring her down? Salmond’s motive must partly be revenge. He clearly blames
Sturgeon for the fact that he ended up in court and would have gone to prison
if convicted. But why should a certain
section of Scottish nationalist opinion both support and cooperate with Salmond?
Some no doubt sympathise with their former leader, but there is also emerging a
clear strategic divide in Scottish nationalism.
This becomes all rather familiar for anyone who
recalls the internal struggle in Sinn Féin and the IRA in the final years of
their campaign. The divide was between fundamentalists who wanted to continue
bombing until the British were defeated and between gradualists who wished to
decide the matter politically. This
civil war was very murky indeed, but the winner determined the eventual
outcome.
The SNP is now dividing into Salmondist fundamentalists
who talk of forcing independence if the British deny them an independence referendum
and Sturgeonite gradualists who are willing to be patient at least for now.
Joanna Cherry’s talk of going down the Irish route to
independence, albeit without the violence would be a viewpoint that sees the
route to independence as requiring the removal of Sturgeon. However much
Sturgeon talks about an independence referendum taking place soon she will do
nothing illegal if it doesn’t.
It is a dangerous strategy to pretend to independence supporters
continually since 2014 that the next referendum is just on the horizon.
Eventually you work up the passions of your supporters just a little too much and
they cannot bear another disappointment. It is because of the passions Sturgeon
has enflamed that some of her supporters suggest going down the very Irish
route that Sturgeon’s gradualism opposes.
But this division in the independence movement must
surely mean that their prospects of winning independence can be discounted. A
divided army wins no battles.
Sturgeon is by far the SNP’s best politician. Without
her support for independence would decline. Salmond could not sensibly replace
her. He has been tainted by ten women accusing him of sexual assault and his
admission of misbehaviour even if it was not criminal. Joanna Cherry womaning
the metaphorical barricades would scare off more Scots than it converted.
The argument that life in Scotland would be much the
same after independence is hard enough to make after Brexit, but it would be
harder still to believe if Scotland somehow achieved independence illegally by
some form of rebellion. If that wouldn’t frighten the Scottish horses, what would?
The Pro UK task is to get rid of Sturgeon, because she
is the reason for increased support for the SNP. We must thank the SNP’s
fundamentalist wing for helping us in this task.
But even if Sturgeon survives her party is so divided
that it is impossible to imagine it achieving independence either by means of
fundamentalism or by means of gradualism. The SNP might manage a Sturgeon
Salmond Pact on the lines of Molotov Ribbentrop, but while it might be able to
defeat Poland it could not defeat Britain.
The cupboard is bare if Sturgeon goes. The next leader
of the SNP would either advocate rebellion or would be a Sturgeon clone, but
less talented.
Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams were right to go down
the gradualist route, because they were able to trade making peace for a
political process that could eventually give them their aim. It was for this
reason the British were willing to work with and protect them for some years
prior to the end of the armed struggle.
Sturgeon is in a similar position, but she has nothing
to bargain. It is for this reason that she is being attacked internally. She keeps
promising what she cannot deliver, and the patience of her supporters is
running out. She is wounded no matter the result of the Inquiry so much so that
it matters little if she is forced to resign or not.