I was on a train from Glasgow to Edinburgh last Wednesday, and had just logged on to the in-train Wi-Fi, when the news broke. Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister in the Scottish parliament, and leader of the Scottish National Party, had resigned. For one reason and another there will be few Scots for whom this did not constitute a “Kennedy moment”. An older generation will find it hard to understand that I now have to explain for the younger generation what this is. John F. Kennedy was both the US president and a towering and era-defining political figure. He was assassinated on 22nd November, 1963. This event was so shocking that it became a memory anchor for a whole generation (or two). People would discus where they were and what they were doing when they heard that Kennedy had been shot. Now, it is true that, to slightly misquote a famous vice-presidential debate, Nicola Sturgeon “is no Jack Kennedy”. But in the relatively small world of Scottish politics, and more widely in the UK, she has been a major presence for more than twenty years.
It isn't hard to find reviews of her political career from friends and foes alike. Love her or loath her, all are agreed that she was (is?) a formidable political operator. Most are also agreed that she was head and shoulders above most of her Scottish opponents and more than a few of her UK ones (she has seen off Conservative UK Prime Ministers almost beyond counting). She has been a dominant figure in Scotland, particularity since she took over from Alex Salmond, her former mentor, after the independence/separation referendum was lost (from her point of view) in 2014. Her whole purpose in politics was to break up the political union that is the United Kingdom, and see Scotland take its place as an independent and sovereign state, one of the family of European nations. Unfortunately a solid majority of her fellow Scots did not agree, and voted 55% to 45% in favour of the status quo. But this of course was merely a temporary setback. Salmond resigned, Sturgeon took over, and began agitating. With Brexit, she saw an opportunity. This she claimed was a material change in circumstances and fundamental alteration in what the opponents of independence had been offering the Scottish people back in 2014. Indeed, when the Brexit vote was broken down by UK nation, Scotland had “voted” against leaving the European Union. This quietly ignores the issue that Scotland, as Scotland, wasn't being asked; it was a UK-wide vote. Just as both Glasgow and Edinburgh were both bound by the outcome of IndyRef1 although they voted differently, so Scotland was bound by the outcome of the Brexit referendum.
In truth it made little difference. Some pretext would have been found, some excuse advanced, as to why the agreed position in 2014, that IndyRef1 was a once-in-a-generation opportunity, wasn't. What few in England seem to have ever grasped is that this single aim was Sturgeon's (and is the SNP's) over-riding aim. Given the name and aim of her political party this is an elementary error. Over-riding means exactly that. To the SNP Independence is more important than educational performance, NHS budgets, drug deaths and tax policy, all of which are highly contentious in Scotland. And this is not only the case because independence is seen as a means to an end i.e. that all of these other problems will be more fixable in an independent Scotland. Even if Scotland were to be demonstrably poorer on its own, this would not matter to a true tartan nationalist. Theirs is a principled position, not a means to and end. Independence is what truly matters and everything else is secondary. Post-Brexit, this should not be that hard to understand in the rest of the UK. A lot of folk voted to leave the EU in the full knowledge that they would be worse off. They were told often enough that this would be one of the outcomes. And so it has transpired.
At the centre of all of this was wee Nicola. But no more. Out of a bright, blueish, Edinburgh sky, came the announcement on Wednesday that she was resigning. And so I shall ever remember that I was pulling out of Easterhouse station on my way to Edinburgh Waverley. But as with trains, life moves on. US politics motored along after JFK's assassination, and political life in Scotland and the UK will do too. And Nicola Sturgeon's true significance will be assessed and reassessed as time, like a train, rolls along. Inevitably, attention has now turned to who will replace her, and what this mean for both Scottish and constitutional politics.
So far, one name seems to be at, or near, the top of the pundits' lists: that of Kate Forbes. Ms Forbes is the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy in the SNP government, and is currently on maternity leave. Kate Forbes is a Christian, and this is clearly seen as a problem by at least some of the commentariat. Some, probably out of ignorance, reach for stereotypes. My suspicion is that few of the political team on the Times know the difference between, say, the Free Church of Scotland and the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, they are both “free” and “presbyterian” after all. But differences there are. For the record Forbes is a member of the Free Church. This, in the view of one of the scribblers at the Times is sufficient to qualify her as a “strict Christian” who belongs to “an austere Christian denomination” (the Times, 18/2/23, p9!). Others see trouble ahead particularly given that currently the SNP in Edinburgh are in cahoots with the Scottish Greens.
Forbes was spared any involvement in the Gender Recognition Reform Bill debates at Holyrood by virtue of her maternity leave. But differences with her party activists over this, abortion and homosexuality (if they exist) have all been highlighted as potential flashpoints. While at Westminster such issues are treated as matters of conscience and are rarely (if ever) whipped, the same is not true in Edinburgh. Only the Conservatives allowed their members a free vote on GRR. There are echoes here of the difficulties Tim Farron got into in the 2017 general election campaign (which I discussed at the time here). He found that he could not both lead a UK political party, and live as a faithful Christian because of the tensions between his Christian beliefs and some of his party's policies which he had to represent. He has also been admirably candid that this was largely because in publicly answering a number of key questions, he had been unwise in his approach. There are undoubtedly some in the media who are already dusting down some of the very same questions to put to Kate Forbes should she stand to be leader of her party and First Minister of Scotland. Such interactions, if and when they come, will tell us more about media, culture and society, than they will reveal anything about Kate Forbes and Christianity.
Interesting times ahead then. But some of us will always remember where we were on the afternoon of Wednesday 15th February, 2023.
