The Cybernat-in-Chief

Nicola Sturgeon's divisive rhetoric only stirs anger and resentment.

The welcoming committee that greeted James Cook in Perth was a grim but by now familiar sight.

The BBC journalist, there to cover the Tory leadership hustings, was branded a ‘traitor’ by a baying mob.

It was a scene so ugly that Nicola Sturgeon took a break from poking the bear to express her disappointment in the bear’s behaviour. 

A video of Cook’s treatment went viral and prompted others to share their experiences of Scotland’s uniquely joyous and civic nationalism.

Former Labour MP Pamela Nash recalled being abused in the street, having her car surrounded at traffic lights by a group of men, and even having her front door vandalised. Better Together’s Blair McDougall spoke of the senior SNP activist who claimed to have placed his home ‘under surveillance’. 

There are plenty other such stories and everyone who speaks out against the SNP has one. A gentleman kindly got in touch the other day to inform me that, in any other country, I would be ‘investigated for sedition’. 

Every time nationalism shows its true face, there is a general shaking of heads and wringing of hands, accompanied by a lament for how Scotland has been rendered unrecognisable by a new political sectarianism as acrid and divisive as the old enmity of the Orange and the Green.

I agree, but lamentations are no longer enough. There is an alternative to mere tutting and it is for Westminster to step in and stop the misuse of the devolution settlement to sow division and undermine the UK. For that to happen, we need political leadership with some vision and mettle. 

Inside the Perth hustings — the ones you had to run a gamut of hatred and intimidation to access — a party member asked Rishi Sunak to support making it unlawful for Scottish ministers to spend public money on non-devolved matters.

The former Chancellor burst out laughing and noted that Douglas Ross and Scottish Secretary Alister Jack were ‘chuckling away at the front here’. 

The man’s question did not deserve to be met with laughter. It was a reasonable suggestion for remedying the disastrously flawed devolution settlement introduced by Labour and expanded by the Tories. Maybe if the leaders of Unionism thought more like that man, we wouldn’t be in the situation we are now. 

There is a link between the flaws of devolved government and the howling mob in Perth. In devising a Holyrood system, Donald Dewar and Scottish Labour’s other arrogant empire-builders neglected to create much in the way of checks and balances. After all, it was to be their fiefdom and would never fall into the wrong hands. 

The SNP has taken full advantage of this hubris, directing both public resources and civil servants to agitate for independence. Taxpayers are funding the Scottish Government to act as an adjunct of the SNP’s campaign to dismantle the United Kingdom. It is, however, more than an issue of dubious spending.

Even with the SNP in government, the party’s constant reassurances that independence is coming would only carry so much weight. It is because Nicola Sturgeon can lend the imprimatur of the Scottish Government to her separatist rhetoric that talk of another referendum has convinced a large section of the electorate. 

Of course, doing so alters the terms of the debate. Instead of the SNP saying Westminster ought to allow a referendum, the Scottish Government is making plans to hold one of its own. Instead of refusing to bow to the demands of a political party, Westminster is said to be disregarding the elected Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament.

Sturgeon has reframed a constitutional dispute as a national one, no longer secessionists versus Unionists but Scotland versus Westminster. This is a clever strategy. It is also a dangerous one. 

Because if the debate over independence is now one of the Scottish state against the British state, there is an implicit demand that the public take sides. Not simply, or even primarily, on the wisdom or otherwise of independence, but on the principle of whether Scotland or Westminster should decide Scotland’s future.

It is, in effect, a loyalty test. The thing about loyalty tests is that they require at least some to be found disloyal, otherwise there is nothing against which to measure the fidelity of true patriots. 

This can only lead to more acrimony, division and hatred. When not merely the SNP but the Scottish Government tells hardline nationalists that a referendum is coming next year, it sets up an already angry, aggrieved constituency for a bitter disappointment. No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, Liz Truss, the Tory leadership favourite, is not going to allow another referendum.

Rather than de-escalate, the Scottish Government will only ramp up its rhetoric even further. Expect more pot-stirring from the First Minister about 'democracy denial’ and Scotland ‘being treated like something on the sole of Westminster’s shoe’. 

As and when a referendum does not take place next year, Sturgeon will seek to whip up resentment among both die-hard nationalists and undecided voters ill-disposed to the thought of Westminster frustrating the will of the elected Scottish Government. This indignation she will try to parlay into another landslide victory for the SNP in the next general election. 

But political anger, once unleashed, is difficult to control and may not find the outlet Sturgeon hopes. Those already in a near constant state of fury against all things Westminster will become even more splenetic. Those who hallucinate Scotland’s place in the UK as some kind of oppression will feel even more righteous in their imagined victimhood. 

Pro-Union politicians can expect more hate mail and more vandalism of their offices. Journalists can expect to be called traitors and quislings even more than usual. If the next general election fails to produce a government willing to grant another referendum, it is anyone’s guess where all this rage and grievance will go. 

Scottish politics is a pressure cooker trembling on a stovetop and someone had better vent the valve soon. One way to do so would be for Westminster to amend the Scotland Act along similar lines to those proposed by that Tory member in Perth.

Legislate to make it unlawful for the Scottish Government or Scottish Parliament to expend public resources on independence except during a referendum campaign greenlit by Westminster.

Make it unlawful, too, for Scottish Ministers to direct civil servants to undertake any duties in relation to independence without a similar go-ahead from the UK Parliament. 

Yes, the Scottish Government would cry ‘power grab’ but they do that all the time anyway. Yes, it would provoke an almighty row but it’s not as though letting the SNP have its own way all the time has led to an outbreak of peace and harmony. The choice is not between discord and a quiet life but between discord now and discord for the foreseeable. 

Once the wailing and gnashing of teeth run their course, the SNP will be left facing a stark choice: knuckle down to governing or admit they either cannot or will not govern Scotland as long as it remains in the UK. They are more than content to lay down loyalty tests for the rest of us, so let’s lay down one for them. If the SNP loves Scotland as much as it says, if it enjoys the monopoly on patriotism that it seems to believe, then here is its chance to prove it. 

Commit to using the vast powers of the Scottish Parliament to improve the lives of the Scottish people until such time as independence becomes practically achievable. Agree to prioritise the attainment gap, waiting lists and drugs deaths over inciting more vilification of Holyrood opponents, Westminster and others.

A party of patriots could make these sacrifices in the interests of the nation. It’s up to the SNP to decide whether it is such a party.

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Originally published in the Scottish Daily Mail on August 22, 2022.