Scotland’s Most Powerful Politician Couldn’t Get What She Wanted

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s most powerful political figure, announced her intention to resign as first minister, the head of the country’s devolved administration. It’s the end of an era in Scotland, where Sturgeon dominated the political scene for nearly a decade. Her party, the left-populist Scottish National Party (SNP), now not only holds power in Scotland’s Parliament but holds almost all of the Scottish seats in the U.K. Parliament in Westminster. Sturgeon had transcended regional leadership to take a starring role on the U.K.-wide political stage—and may have even bigger ambitions for her post-political career.

Yet the main goal of Sturgeon’s time in power has been the secession of Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom, and in this she has decidedly failed. Taking office as head of the SNP in 2014 after a decisive independence referendum loss, Sturgeon failed to move the ball forward no matter what she tried. Although the party was keen to dub local, regional, and national elections as “de facto referendums,” no second vote was ever called. A recent bid to force the issue ended with defeat in the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court, which found that a new referendum run only under Scotland’s devolved powers would be unconstitutional.

Sturgeon was a supreme communicator, and her public relations team—run out of the first minister’s official residence, Bute House—effectively outmuscled all Scottish opposition. SNP spinners outnumbered the journalists sent by the national broadcaster, the BBC, to cover Scottish politics; and Sturgeon cannily used press conferences during times of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic, to undermine the U.K. government’s claims of national unanimity. She would either preempt British announcements, sometimes only an hour or so earlier, or publicly disagree with them—all in an always successful bid to capture headlines.

Sturgeon’s opponents grumbled at these efforts—they called them stunts. But they always worked, and she never lost an election as SNP leader.

But Sturgeon’s tenure exposed many of the shortcomings of nationalist and populist politicians after they’ve taken power. They campaign largely on the basis of a single slogan and policy. And when they return again and again to office—especially if they cannot enact their chosen policy or slogan—they begin to struggle and suffer. Sturgeon wished dearly to be Scotland’s first leader after the country seceded from the United Kingdom.

Critics alleged that she had very few plans to govern Scotland as a devolved leader, had little interest in doing so, and felt that she was an international figure deserving of a global platform accorded to a head of state or government.

As an independence advocate, Sturgeon found herself confronting long-term domestic problems that could not be solved by another referendum on independence. Scotland is a less economically productive part of the U.K. than England is; it has a worse-run health service; and its economy grows, on average, less strongly. Fewer people immigrate to Scotland than to the rest of the United Kingdom.

Its death rate by drug overdose is significantly higher than not only the rest of the United Kingdom but also the rest of Europe as a whole. In 2021, 1,330 people died of drug use in Scotland. The drug death rate in Scotland is around 3.7 times the rate in the U.K. as a whole. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction is cautious about comparing like with like, but it claims that Scotland’s drug death rate is, as measured, the worst in Europe.

These intractable problems—including in education, something Sturgeon insisted she be judged on—proved the lack of adaptability among nationalist leadership. When problems arose, a party whose members increasingly only agreed on a few pet issues—independence being one—sometimes struggled to unite around a prospectus.

The argument that most directly led to Sturgeon’s downfall was a social issue: self-identification and the legal changing of gender. Sturgeon’s party at Westminster had already seen a split when some of its members joined a new party led by Sturgeon’s immediate predecessor, Alex Salmond, who had become her hated rival in the intervening years. This issue threatened further dissension. The first minister did not change her mind. The Scottish Parliament, with an SNP and Scottish Green Party majority, passed the bill allowing self-identification.

When her gender policy ran into difficulty, first when the bill was vetoed by the Scotland secretary—the cabinet minister in Westminster responsible for Scotland and invested with broadly unused constitutional power to return devolved laws—and later when a scandal erupted over the sending of a transgender woman prisoner convicted of raping women to a woman’s prison, Sturgeon dug in.

She painted her critics as not feminists and unfeeling. She attempted to suggest that people who committed sexual violence were neither men nor women but “rapists”—almost as if it were a third gender—and when she failed to thread this needle effectively, Sturgeon blocked all movement of prisoners assigned male at birth to female prisons following an audit.

By this time, the public and the SNP were mutinous. Sturgeon had disregarded her critics internally and externally and bulldozed ahead, assuming that she could sweep aside any criticism by calling those who disagreed with her bigoted and retrograde. This did not work, and for many people in her party, it represented the failure of what had been a sure political touch.

The SNP has been in government for more than a decade. It faces elections to the devolved Scottish Parliament in a few months. If the first minister powered ahead with policies like this in the teeth of a divided public—only to reverse course with a screech of her tires, SNP insiders thought—a leader who was once a great asset could swiftly become an electoral drag.

In her farewell speech yesterday, Sturgeon described running out of energy. “Giving absolutely everything of yourself to this job is the only way to do it. The country deserves nothing less,” she said.

“But in truth, that can only be done by anyone for so long. For me, it is now in danger of becoming too long. The First Minister is never off duty, particularly in this day and age. There is virtually no privacy.”

At a time of great political heat, she said: “The nature and form of modern political discourse means that there is a much greater intensity—dare I say it—brutality to life as a politician than in years gone by. All in all, and actually for a long time without being apparent, it takes its toll on you and on those around you.”

Sturgeon has long been suggested as a global envoy or special rapporteur. She has always had global ambitions. Some reports say she wanted to be a U.N. ambassador for women. In any case, global campaigning and advisory roles are likely in her future. She will not retire.

Sturgeon has proved to be the most electorally successful SNP leader. Beginning as a gray figure behind the colorful Salmond, she unexpectedly become Scotland’s most famous politician. Yet eight years is a long time to govern on one policy and one slogan—especially one that remains perpetually in the future.