Euan McColm: Where Nicola Sturgeon went so wrong

As they recovered from the shock of Nicola Sturgeon’s out-of-the-blue resignation statement, SNP politicians lined up to pay tribute to their departing leader. And, boy, they really went for it.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaking during the press conference at Bute House

To say the general tone was one of breathless adoration would be an understatement. The First Minister was the finest politician of her generation, an individual of unique compassion, a leader without equal who had brought Scotland closer to independence than it had ever been.

Praise came, too, from across the commentariat, with grizzled cynics and “hello birds, hello flowers” pro-independence idealists united in adoration of Sturgeon’s gifts as a communicator. A common refrain was that she had got Scotland through the coronavirus pandemic.

I think the scientists who developed the Covid vaccine have a greater claim to that achievement than the departing First Minister whose decisions during that dreadful period led to the same outcomes as decisions taken by then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

But we Scots can be a gushingly sentimental people - sometimes so much so that we make Liverpudlians look buttoned up - so the reaction to Sturgeon’s resignation was hardly surprising. Even our failed politicians are better than yours.

And, I’m afraid, when the dust settles, it will become clear that for all her talents, Sturgeon’s political career has ended - as the old cliché goes - in failure.

Yes, it’s true the First Minister is a good communicator. She does a convincing version of empathy and a decent line in I’m-just-like-you humility.

These gifts made her a formidable campaigner, for sure. But they did not help her govern well. After more than eight years in power, Sturgeon departs from the frontline leaving public services in disarray.

Her successor will inherit an NHS on its knees, an education system in crisis, and failing council services cut to the bone by swingeing cuts. And that's before they get to the scandal of over-priced but undelivered ferries, the scrapping of the A9-dualling promise, and the not insignificant matter of gender recognition act reform, which set Sturgeon firmly against the majority of Scots.

And the incoming SNP leader will have to fix an independence strategy that’s currently in tatters. I’m not at all sure the SNP members who will choose our next First Minister are ready to listen to hard truths on this matter.

The reality is that Sturgeon made bad call after bad call and did nothing to advance her cause. Where stands support for independence? It stands over there, where Alex Salmond left it after the Yes campaign lost the 2014 referendum.

It is the tragedy of Sturgeon’s career that she once understood how she might build support for her nationalist project and then seemed to forget.

On becoming First Minister, she let it be known that she would not push for a second referendum until support for independence was polling at more than 60 per cent for a prolonged period of time.

But SNP members were impatient. They wanted a referendum now and Sturgeon changed her tune to match their dance.

This fatal mistake laid the foundations for the First Minster’s downfall. In election campaign after election campaign, she promised her supporters a referendum was within reach. She told them no Prime Minister would refuse to play ball, She led them up the garden path.

But, time and again, reality clattered into Sturgeon’s rhetoric. She had no power to run a referendum and there was no obligation on the part of any PM to confer that power upon her.

After running out of constitutional road, Sturgeon declared her intention to treat the next General Election as a de facto referendum. While this red meat was gobbled up by enthusiastic SNP supporters, many of Sturgeon's colleagues found it completely unpalatable, recognising that the plan could only end in failure. In the unlikely event of pro-independence parties winning a majority of votes, the Prime Minister of the day would say this hadn’t been a legitimate referendum and refuse to enter secession talks. And if the pro-independence parties came up short, the PM would say “you had your second referendum and you lost.”

The temptation for candidates vying to replace Sturgeon will be to tell SNP members they can get them over the constitutional line sooner rather than later.

This would be a mistake.

Instead, the next nationalist leader should be honest with his or her supporters. A majority of Scots continue to oppose independence and if that’s to change, the SNP should get on with showing competence in government.

The cautious, small c conservative Scots who must be won over if the Yes campaign is to prevail are repelled by flag-strewn marches and angry online Bravehearts. They want - indeed, they need - reassurance.

Sturgeon failed to provide that. For all her talk about being a leader for all Scots, she made no effort to reach out to the unpersuaded. Rather, she told her own supporters that membership of their movement was growing in number when all the evidence told us it was not.

A First Minister who apes Sturgeon’s style will neither advance the independence cause nor improve the lives of Scots currently struggling during a brutal cost of living crisis.

A good start for whoever next leads the Scottish Government would be the tearing up of the coalition arrangement with the Greens. It’s ridiculous that a party which is anti-economic growth has been allowed anywhere near power.

And, after that, there must be a focus on governing well and delivering tangible results.

When Nicola Sturgeon’s predecessor, Alex Salmond, resigned he said the dream would never die, if her successor doesn’t reset SNP strategy, they may soon be wondering if the nightmare will ever end.