Nicola Sturgeon fancies herself as something of an international stateswoman, jetting off to the United States to boost her profile and touring the capitals of Europe in search of allies against Brexit. She is fond, too, of tweeting her commentary on global affairs, in the hope that others may learn from her example so that, one day, they too can lead a country with a £12.6bn deficit that can’t teach its children how to read.
A network of de facto embassies has been steadily assembled, nominally to promote trade ties (which the UK Government already does) but in reality to promote Scotland externally as a separate state.
Those who point out that such matters are wholly reserved to the UK Parliament, and the SNP leader has no business using taxpayers’ money to build her own foreign policy apparatus, are dismissed as gurning pettifoggers. The cooing commentariat longs for Westminster to produce someone of Sturgeon’s calibre, as though the Labour backbenches weren’t chockers with earnest, well-meaning junior ministry talent.
Finally, as was always going to happen, a foreign relations nightmare has fallen in her lap.
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