Nicola Sturgeon’s great political success has been in making the abnormal look normal. She supports Scottish independence – a political project that absorbs the costs of Brexit and makes them escalate – the natural home of grieving Remaining Scots, rather than, say, the equivalent of cutting off both legs and an arm .
The most effective politicians always manage to create a reality distortion field around them, and Sturgeon is no exception. The halo outlasted her tenure even: her sudden resignation as chief minister was described by many commentators as a refreshing change rather than the obvious act of a politician whose projects had come to an end , and its party is increasingly unruly.
In subsequent campaigns, her finance minister, Kate Forbes, was portrayed as a rational choice. The Forbes campaign is meant to remind you that the money she signed as Treasurer was wasted, the government’s public policy record is terrible, its social policy is criminal, but these are the prices that are worth paying for the grand prize that will lift Scotland from Its participation in three centuries of legal, political and social alliances segregated. In addition, Forbes’ social attitude keeps her away from centrist opinion, and her support within the parliamentary party shrinks to more wetlands. Only the media class, still bewitched by Sturgeon’s charisma, could consider such a candidacy wise, or dangerously close to electing her party membership, rather than reckless.
Sturgeon’s distortion field also meant the SNP – still! – seeks to avoid the awkward question of whether the UK crisis triggered by Liz Truss’ disastrous budget might also imply real limits to an independent Scotland’s short-term ability to do even a quarter of what it promises to do.
The field applies not only to her own political projects, but also to the personal details of her leadership. Although political parties generally underperform compared with all but the eccentric businesses, the SNP’s internal arrangements are unusual even by such standards.
Her husband, Peter Murrell, has been the party’s chief executive since 1999 and has been in charge throughout her leadership. Across the Western world, a growing number of powerful spouses are powerful themselves, but few have been able to convince boards or their shareholders to accept such intimacy outside the company. Family business, that’s right.
This close relationship, however, was dismissed by the party as another close couple. This was the case even though the organization’s treasurer resigned, saying he did not “have the support or financial information” to assume the role and was replaced by his predecessor. None of this is normal, all of this is so far from best practice that it would take a rocket ship to get there. It is a measure of Sturgeon’s political prowess that it will take arrests and a police tent in the garden to make the situation widely questionable.
But there is a reason for this unusual arrangement. Sturgeon is just the heir apparent to a party that has long operated as a clique. Alex Salmond, her mentor-turned-rival and de facto founder of the modern SNP, also runs the party outside a small circle (of which both Sturgeon and Murrell are members) .
One reason is that, not surprisingly, historically, operating the SNP as a small bloc has proven the only way to make it an effective electoral force. The SNP is a party committed to very painful irregularities in the Scottish job over a long period of time, uncertain returns and a series of major disagreements about what to do next. It encompasses greater ideological and strategic divisions than any other major party in the UK – touching on everything from defense to social policy to the economy.
Focusing his forces in this way has helped Sturgeon to great success. This allows her to position the SNP as a normal centre-left party and Scottish independence as a way out of Westminster chaos and spending cuts, rather than a vote to advance both. But it also means that, as issues unfold around the party, it will be difficult for her or her successor not to suspect that they are at worst active complicit, or at best profoundly indifferent to the inner workings of the party. It also means that the internal divisions that Salmond and Sturgeon have so successfully hidden from public view are likely to be a prominent and scarring feature of Scottish politics for some time.
stephen.bush@ft.com