Andrew McQuillan

Nicola Sturgeon is running out of road

(Credit: Getty images)

Nicola Sturgeon gave a predictable response to the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Scottish government does not have the power to legislate for a referendum on Scottish independence. The First Minister dialled up the grievance factor by claiming the decision ‘exposes as myth any notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership’. If only there was a vote in the past eight years which disproves her point. 

The court’s ruling, delivered in the clipped tones of the Edinburgh-educated Lord Reed, was a fitting coup de grace in response to the grandstanding of the Scottish government and Scottish National Party.

Rallies and protests are reportedly being scheduled the length and breadth of Scotland by the faithful of the nationalist movement in response. MPs and MSPs are already tweeting that the decision proves Scotland is not an ‘equal partner within the Union’. Such talk bears more than a little in common with the ‘Stop the Steal’ tin-hattedness of president Trump’s supporters and the FBPE brigade’s perpetual marching to stop Brexit. 

In her speech following the verdict, Sturgeon was keen to drum up the faithful in their quest for independence:

This judgment is a disappointment, but it is not one we will wallow in. (It) gives us the clarity we need to plot a definite way forward.’

The outcome of the Supreme Court hearing, Sturgeon proclaimed, shows that ‘this is no longer about whether or not Scotland becomes independent. It is now about whether or not we have the basic democratic right to choose our future’. Excusing herself for quoting a former Conservative prime minister, she echoed the words of John Major:

‘No nation can be held irrevocably in a union against its will.’

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