In March this year, as the country went into Covid-prompted lockdown, the SNP and the Scottish government put their campaigns for independence on hold. 2020 has been a year of few consolations and it is typical that even its better things must come to an end.
Then again, there was no need for the SNP to put their demands for independence into cold storage, for a temporary cessation of outrage requires nobody to forget the party’s sole reason for existence. So few people took this notional ceasefire seriously – though characteristically the SNP demanded credit for it anyway – and even fewer will have been surprised to discover this afternoon that just as Nicola Sturgeon thought the case for Scottish independence was unanswerable before the coronavirus arrived, so she believes Covid-19 makes independence more vital and urgent than ever. Mandy Rice-Davies and all that, you know.
There are elections to the Holyrood parliament next year and the SNP will once again be rewarded with victory. All that remains to be ascertained is the precise margin of that triumph. A majority – either on its own or in alliance with the Greens – will constitute a fresh mandate for a second referendum on independence. This may not actually be in Holyrood’s gift but there is little denying the fact that such demands will be buttressed with a renewed measure of moral authority.
Still, the speech Nicola Sturgeon gave to her party’s virtual conference today was a classic of the now familiar Sturgeon genre. That is to say it was clever and artful and misleading and vainglorious in equal measure. To take but a couple of the more egregiously misleading passages, the First Minister suggested that after Scottish independence ‘our relationship with our closest friends in the rest of the UK won’t come to an end’ which may be true but is not as true as noting that this relationship will be utterly changed.
Equally, Sturgeon is right to note that Scotland, like the rest of the UK is (stupidly, but whatever) leaving the European single market that is, as she said, ‘in populations terms seven times the size of the UK.’ Only a churl would note that the UK market is more than three times as important to the Scottish economy as the EU one and that it is Sturgeon’s policy to erect barriers to that trade where there are none just now. A mere detail, of course, but a tolerably salient one. Sovereignty, however valuable, comes at a price.
Covid, conveniently, proves that Nicola Sturgeon’s vision for the future was right all along. Few, it any, adjustments are required
Voters like a little humanity from their leaders, so Sturgeon was quick to note that this has been a difficult year and one in which she has endured ‘many dark days and sleepless nights, struggling with the horrendous choices the pandemic has forced upon us.’ Doubtless so, though the cynic in me wishes to note that hitherto First Ministers have not felt the need to ask for a participation trophy. If Boris Johnson spoke like this, I fancy many might have little sympathy for these agonies of leadership. But it is a testament to Sturgeon’s undoubted, unrivalled connection with voters that this seemed human, not soaked in self-pity.
She has always been clever enough to appreciate the advantage of allowing that mistakes will be made – how could they not be, in dealing with a challenge of this sort – and ‘the responsibility for that is mine and mine alone’. A pattern has emerged, however, in which mistakes are made but only in an abstract fashion. For whenever specific criticisms are made or concrete examples of governmental failure produced these turn out not to be mistakes at all. Certainly, no one may reasonably be held accountable for them. Besides, how would you have done any better?
A fair question but, once again, when success is judged to be performing a little bit better than how they are failing in England, the bar to success is not dauntingly high. Here, as so often, Johnson’s ministry is Sturgeon’s gallant team of helpers. Or, as Sturgeon put it, we haven’t got everything right ‘but I doubt there are many people in Scotland who would have wanted Westminster to be more in charge of our pandemic response.’ (Happily, of course, the Bank of England has proved its worth and that, given the SNP’s currency contortions, might be something to be kept in mind.)
As you would expect – for no SNP leader can be blamed for taking advantage of an open goal – the Prime Minister’s suggestion devolution has been a ‘disaster’ and Jacob Rees-Mogg’s fat-headed call to ‘undo’ the mistakes of creating the devolved administrations in the first place, played a starring role in Sturgeon’s address. With friends like these in Downing Street, Unionism is hobbling itself.
Covid, conveniently, proves that Nicola Sturgeon’s vision for the future was right all along. Few, it any, adjustments are required. Independence will be ‘good for all of us’. Here again, Tartan Cakeism is the order of the day; there are only winners in our glorious future. For – golly! – ‘independence is not a distraction from the task of post-Covid reconstruction, it is essential to getting it right.’ If you accept the SNP’s priors this is true, but then this could be said of any situation, at any moment in our history, and in any circumstances.
The First Minister duly paid tribute to ‘our incredible NHS staff, our social care workers, our police officers and teachers and every public servant and key worker who has contributed so much to helping us through’. Few would begrudge them that praise though. Typically, no significant mention was made of those countless private sector businesses who have worked wonders merely to stay afloat – and thus to preserve livelihoods – this year. It is often the things politicians fail to say that tell you most about them and this was another reminder of that eternal truth. As a pro-forma matter, Nicola Sturgeon has a vague understanding the private sector matters, but she does not feel it in her bones.
The headline rabbit was a £500 bonus to be paid to all NHS staff and every care home worker in Scotland. At a cost of £180 million this is an expensive rabbit but this is an election year. But Sturgeon was not content to leave it there. The payment should be tax-free, she insisted, and she challenged the Prime Minister to ensure it will be.
As a piece of political positioning this is awfully cute even if its appeal comes at the expense of the SNP’s intellectual coherence. Doctors and nurses will doubtless welcome the tax-free bung, though one is left to wonder why, if they should not be taxed on bonuses, should they be taxed at all? One might also pause to consider whether a GP or hospital consultant is really more morally deserving of this largesse than those citizens who have actually been impoverished during this crisis.
Be that as it may, writing a cheque to be paid for by someone else is a classic SNP manoeuvre and even if one does not wholly approve of the game, it is always pleasing to see it played so well.
In the end, the route to independence matters so much less than reaching the destination. That is the imperishable SNP truth and no amount of changed circumstances can falsify this eternal truth. Sturgeon’s speech this afternoon was a triumphant display of political positioning and even those who disagree with her preferred destination should be capable of appreciating that.
‘As an independent country, we can be decision-makers, partners, bridge-builders,’ she concluded, ‘And we have a right, if a majority of us want it, to choose that future’ for ‘that inalienable right of self-determination cannot, and will not, be subject to a Westminster veto.’
Except, of course, it can be. Though only, perhaps, in the short-term because just as the UK government cannot possibly accept a new independence referendum next year or even the year after, so it must also accept that Just Say No is a policy subject to the law of diminishing returns. Nicola Sturgeon cannot deliver her preferred outcome but she’s betting that Boris Johnson will help her get there in the end. On the evidence currently available, this is not such a foolish gamble.
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