It may not be possible to prove it, it probably won’t
be possible to get Nicola Sturgeon to resign. She is protected by her SNP MSPs
and by her Scottish Green MSPs. If there were a vote of no confidence in Sturgeon,
she would probably win it. The Alex Salmond Inquiry Committee will also vote along
independence supporting lines. But despite all of these things we now know, pretty
much beyond a reasonable doubt, that there was a conspiracy against Mr Salmond,
that senior figures in the Scottish Civil Service and the SNP were involved and
that Nicola Sturgeon almost certainly knew about it long before she says she
did. This makes her evidence to the Inquiry look less than honest.
David Davis could not have produced the messages that
he did if they had not been sent. The messages could not have been sent if
there had not been a conspiracy. The people involved in sending the messages
are so close to Sturgeon, her husband, her chief of staff, that it is
impossible to imagine that she was not involved. The idea that her chief of staff,
Liz Lloyd did a bit of freelance work without Sturgeon’s knowledge or
permission is to imagine what would have happened if Sturgeon had been
displeased at those close to her investigating Alex Salmond’s past behaviour. How
would Sturgeon have reacted if one of her favourite ministers was being investigated
by her husband and chief of staff without her knowledge?
It is clear from the messages that Davis read out that
there was an attempt to find people who would accuse Mr Salmond of sexual
offences. There was disappointment when promising accusers failed to accuse.
There were attempts to make sure those women who accused Mr Salmond continued
to do so.
By what right did these people usurp the role of the
police? It is not for ordinary citizens to try to gather witnesses to a crime.
It’s the job of ordinary citizens to report matters of concern to the police
and then let the police get on with their job free from interference.
It is quite clear that there were people within the
SNP and the Scottish Civil Service who were desperate to find women who would accuse
Salmond of sexual offences and desperate for him to be convicted. Some of these
people ludicrously were involved in an investigation into Mr Salmond’s behaviour.
To describe the investigation as tainted with bias is something of an understatement.
But all of the alleged offences happened prior to the
independence referendum in 2014. Why had none of the people involved in the
later investigation been so diligent in finding out about Mr Salmond’s alleged
behaviour then? Why suddenly did we have an investigation beginning in 2017
leading to Scottish civil servants and SNP officials striving to find evidence
against Mr Salmond?
The obvious answer to why there was a conspiracy is
that someone started to conspire. We know that Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell
was involved. We know that Sturgeon’s chief of staff Liz Lloyd was involved.
But why hadn’t they begun this conspiracy earlier, say in 2014? What did they
wait for? The answer of course is permission.
If Alex Salmond had still been best friends with Nicola
Sturgeon as he was in the years leading up to the referendum, it is
unimaginable that there would have been a conspiracy to convict him of
anything. If Sturgeon had been told in August 2014 a month before the referendum
of allegations from women working in Bute House, would she have personally
leaked details about those allegations to the Daily Record? No, a conspiracy
could not have happened in 2014, because it would have been inconvenient. It
would have damaged the Yes campaign.
But by 2017 Mr Salmond had begun to annoy Nicola
Sturgeon. He didn’t want to play the revered elder statesman role, but rather had
a tendency to tell her what to do. Worse there was a faction of the SNP that supported
Mr Salmond more than her. The SNP was not quite Sturgeon’s.
We know there was a conspiracy. But we don’t know how
it started. Perhaps someone saw a news report about Harvey Weinstein, had a
light bulb moment involving a band wagon and saw Mr Salmond as a way of getting
on it.
Suddenly a new policy was developed which for the
first time enabled the investigation of former ministers, but not former civil
servants. We are supposed to believe that Sturgeon was not involved and knew
nothing about it. After the first couple of women accused Mr Salmond, there was
an attempt to find more, but again Sturgeon knew nothing about it despite the
involvement of her husband, her chief of staff and that she was frequently in
the building where the alleged sexual assaults happened. Perhaps Sturgeon could
have provided answers or evidence, but she wasn’t even asked.
We are supposed to believe that the last thing Sturgeon
wanted was for her best friend and mentor to be charged with anything, yet it
all just happened by chance without her at any point giving the nod that led to
the conspiracy beginning. This is the equivalent of supposing that when a horse’s
head ends up in your bed, that Don Corleone wasn’t involved and knew nothing
about it. He would not doubt testify that this was so. The idea that a conspiracy
against Alex Salmond could be plotted merely by Peter Murrell, his SNP friends
and members of the Scottish Civil Service without involvement of the person in
charge of all of them makes no sense.
The investigation into Alex Salmond which cost the
Scottish Government more than half a million pounds ought to cost the conspirators
their jobs if not their liberty. It probably won’t. Those who have to go will
go with large pensions. SNP and Green MSPs will put the cause of independence
ahead of the cause of honesty and morality in Government. This is the
fundamental problem with that cause. It causes people to act immorally because
they think getting rid of Mr Salmond by sending him to jail would be worth it
if it increased the power of the SNP and increased the likelihood of
independence.
But the Scottish electorate still has the chance to deprive Sturgeon of her job and the SNP of its power. We had better take that chance, because a Government that is willing to use its power to conspire against Mr Salmond is a Government that is willing to subvert democracy itself.
