And as I sat there brooding on the old,
unknown world, I thought of Sturgeon's wonder when she first picked out the
green light at the end of Covid's dock.
Her popularity was rising as the disease spread throughout
Scotland. But we at least had a deliverer who could save us all from this
sickness. We could be comforted by her daily televangelism. Her prophecy that the
eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped
was finally coming to pass. The most stubborn former No voter was either dead
in a care home, or else converted to the cause. Even Tories were saying we
could not survive without Nicola. Her daily TV appearances killed all known
viruses remotely just by zapping them with a flick of her prompter. When Covid
was over there would be the green light for a second independence referendum
and the result by that stage would be inevitable.
Her dream must have seemed so close that she
could hardly fail to grasp it.
2020 must have seemed a good year for Scottish
nationalism. There had been great hopes before about Brexit. Angry Scottish
Remainers would surely prefer the EU to the UK. Yet somehow it never quite
happened. Sturgeon lost 21 seats at the 2017 General Election. But now finally
the issue that would get her to the promised land had arrived. Of course, she hated
having to be on TV every day, just as she loathed taking selfies with Greta
Thurnberg and a can of Irn Bru. Still there was a moment as her popularity
climbed and as support for independence gained a 13% lead that she saw herself
as unstoppable.
She could hardly fail to grasp the dagger that would
kill the United Kingdom. “Come, let me clutch thee” said Sturgeon “I have thee
not, and yet I see thee still”.
Something happened last winter and it became clearer
still as we moved into the second year of the pandemic. All of Sturgeon’s TV
appearances, all of her little rules and regulations and Scottish versions of
British guidance made zero difference. If there had been no devolution at all
and we’d all just done the same in each part of the UK, it would have made minimal
difference.
I remember how we treated Covid like the Olympics.
Germany was doing better than Britain. It must have been because of all their extra
efficient hospitals. Now they are in lockdown. Sturgeon too saw her task as
simply doing better than England. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for the disease-ridden
English spreading it to Scotland, we wouldn’t have had any cases at all.
I remember how Sturgeon had an elimination strategy in
the summer of 2020 and promised us that if we only did what we were told she
would eradicate Covid. Even Australia and New Zealand haven’t managed that. With
Covid spreading this summer in Scotland at a higher rate than anywhere else in
Britain, Sturgeon looked merely foolish as if she were trying to abolish the common
cold.
She did not know that it was already behind her,
somewhere
back in that vast obscurity of SNP plans, where the dark fields of Ravenscraig
rolled on under the night.
Brexit changed everything firstly on the surface and then
fundamentally. It helped the SNP initially, but this was merely an illusion as
if some unkind fate were playing tricks on Scottish nationalist hopes, like one
of those stories where you are given your heart’s desire, but the price is
something dreadful. It must have seemed so close.
Brexit briefly increased support for the SNP because
Remainer Scots were angry, but in time we all gradually began to realise that it
was going to make it much harder for independence if England was outside the EU
while Scotland was inside. It put Scotland back to a world we hadn’t inhabited since
the Middle Ages and went against the whole course of history where we gradually
became closer to the neighbours on our small island. The SNP have never come up
with a convincing answer to how practically it would work for an EU border to
be drawn between Berwick and Gretna. This is why support for independence is
falling. The fundamentals of the SNP argument are mere obscurity and we won’t
vote for dark fields in the night.
Sturgeon believed in the green light, the
orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.
Boris would say Yes. He would be forced to. If only
she made a coalition with the Scottish Greens, she would get her green light.
But there is no sign of it. The man from Del Monte, he say No. It’s not at all
obvious what Sturgeon with Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater can do about this.
They could hold a vote in the Scottish Parliament, but we already know that it
is outside Sturgeon’s remit, because the courts have told us this. So, it would
be ignored.
It took over three years to organise the first
independence referendum after everyone accepted there would be one in 2011. So,
who are you kidding Mrs Sturgeon when you keep telling us that it will be in
2023? It amounts to a Scottish nationalist wet dream that may well be orgastic,
but is merely a sticky mess the next morning.
It eluded us then, but that's no
matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.
Covid has changed the way we work forever. Along with
the Internet it amounts to a revolution like the invention of the printing press.
We are therefore going through one of the great changes in history and we can
hardly guess what work will be like in the coming decades. Faced with
uncertainty voters stick with what they know.
Two things mattered during the pandemic. The vaccine
and furlough. The first saved our lives the second saved the economy. Neither
came from Sturgeon.
The Conservatives have made a lot of mistakes lately.
But the decision to go it alone on vaccine development rather than join with
the EU, made more difference than everything else put together. It saved more
lives too. In difficult times we learned the benefits of the Treasury. It would
have been much tougher if Scotland had voted for independence in 2014. We all
know this. This is why support for independence is falling.
With Russia perhaps about to invade Ukraine and with China
threatening Taiwan now does not look like a good time to abolish the British armed
forces.
Scottish independence depended on a world that is now
gone. This is the problem with the SNP continually trying to rerun 2014. It
eluded us then. Just one more go. It’s like a compulsive gambler at the puggy
machine. Next time I’ll get four cherries. Even if this time I have only one
and she’s called Joanna.
Tomorrow we will march faster. The pity for these poor
people is that they are marching backwards. All that they demonstrate by their
marches is that they are not really a mass movement.
So we beat on, boats against the current,
borne back ceaselessly into the past.
This is the tragedy of Scottish politics and why the
Scottish Parliament has achieved nothing of significance since it was created.
It isn’t that Scotland could not become independent.
It’s that it couldn’t be done without damaging our prosperity, standard of
living and above all without doing grave damage to the relationship we have with
those who live in the other parts of the UK.
We are obsessed about a past, when we continually
fought against England, which was in every respect worse than now. But it is
not 1314 that prevents our rowing boat from getting beyond the waves that are pushing
it back, it is 2014. Our population is divided and pulling in different
directions. The idea that independence would unite a disjointed crew depends on
the opponents of Scottish nationalism accepting defeat in just the way we have
all learned from the SNP not to do.
The Great Sturgeon may go on and it may be true that
she has no plans for retirement, but she knows that her career is already over
because it is revolving “slowly, tracing, like the leg of compass, a thin red
circle in the water.” And her cause is lying face down dead in the water.
