She may be gone from high office, but as Lesley Riddoch demonstrates, the stultifying miasma of the Sturgeon Doctrine still clings to many of the ‘leading figures’ in the independence movement. An essential part of this doctrine is the notion that there is a long game to be played and what the rest of us mistook for more than eight years of inaction was actually Nicola Sturgeon playing that game so adroitly that to those of us not gifted with her political genius, the long game had started to look like the endless game.
However long the putative long game might be, there must surely be some measurable or least discernible progress in something approximating the appropriate direction – towards the winning post, presumably. The Sturgeon fan club has been challenged time without number to produce some tangible evidence of this movement, however minute. To date, no such evidence has been forthcoming.
Another central tenet of the Sturgeon Doctrine is that the British state is destroying itself. We were told we shouldn’t worry our uninitiated wee heads about what looked to us like paralysed immobility, the professionals were on the job and if there looked to be vanishingly little work-related activity this was because they were brilliantly allowing the Brits to drive the independence bus on their behalf whilst they preserved their energies for more important tasks – such as establishing the cult of sexual transubstantiation as Scotland’s state religion. That the independence bus was unsurprisingly motionless due to its wheels having been removed and its fuel siphoned off was something noted only by traitors to the cause.
Sturgeon has gone a-lurking. But she has left behind a legacy of delusion that lives on in the otherwise vacant minds of her acolytes. And in the chatter of ‘influencers’ such as Lesley Riddoch. It’s an attitude tellingly summed up in her remark that “we should be thanking Starmer. He’s making the case for independence for us”. That remark came after a lengthy exposition on how the (Tory) British government has descended into unfunny farce and is disintegrating before our eyes. As we would see were we fortunate enough to possess a pair of Sturgeon-coloured specs. It’s the same self-serving litany we’ve been regaled with for approaching a decade. Don’t worry! Oor Nicola/Humza is on it! We’ve never been any closer to independence! Don’t ask awkward questions or you’ll be marked as an agent of the British state!
Here’s a sentence one is seldom called upon to write. Adam Tomkins is correct! It’s a statement that has to be heavily qualified, of course. It’s not that he is right about everything. But his conclusion that pre-2014 thinking on restoring Scotland’s independence is obsolete is perfectly accurate. His comments have, not unexpectedly, provoked the ire of those still cherishing their vintage Sturgeon Doctrine. Because yet another facet of this is that success is assured if only we keep doing what we did in the ‘ good old days’ of happy-clappy Yes campaigning, but just do a wee bit more a wee bit better. The ‘thinking’ is that we need only hone the message to perfection and very gently and politely and with exaggerated etiquette offer that message to the people of Scotland – being careful not to waken the sleeping third or frighten any horses – and victory is ours.
The carpet tack in the jar of lubricant which is supposed to remain unmentioned is the fact that this approach ceased to have an impact sometime before the 2014 vote. It got the Yes campaign to within margin-of-error range of 50%+1, then stalled. It has remained stalled ever since. Professor Tomkins is on the money when he implies that a new approach is required. The entire constitutional issue should have been reviewed and rethought and reframed back in early 2015. That Sturgeon failed to do any of this can now be seen as setting the scene for the years of failing Scotland’s cause which followed.
[The] indyref politics in which Scotland has been stuck since before 2014 is dead, but political parties, and their complacent, pedestrian leaders are so sclerotic, so unaware, so bone-headed and so asleep at the wheel, they have yet to notice.
Professor Adam Tomkins
(It should be noted that if one is dissatisfied with Professor Tomkins’s views one need only look back at the record of his comments over the years to find something more to one’s taste.)
Lesley Riddoch allows that “Prof Tomkins is correct to say that the Supreme Court verdict and Number 10 intransigence will force a change of strategy on the SNP”. She does not, however, express any surprise or concern that this hasn’t happened already. Nor does she remark on the fact that it is not actually happening now. Not in any meaningful way. Those still clinging to the tattered and tarnished Sturgeon Doctrine may be taken in by the SNP’s so-called ‘Independence Convention’ to be held later this month. But it isn’t fooling those of us immunised against such vacuous political theatre by a healthy cynicism.
Sturgeon made one faltering step in the general direction of independence toward the end of her term of trepidatious torpor when she grudgingly accepted the idea of a plebiscitary election. It was enough to placate some of the restive discontent appearing as more and more people in the Yes movement noticed the lack of progress despite the increasingly frenzied efforts to sell the notion that we were on the verge of winning. Or at least, on the cusp of the verge. Or approaching it. The proposal for a ‘de facto’ referendum was not, however, sufficient to buy off those of us who realised that the referendum being offered was a sham that would put us right back where we started if it didn’t knock us back by decades. That minute concession to changed circumstances was it. That was all we were getting. And it still is. The ‘Independence Convention’ won’t come up with anything more or new because nothing more or new will even be allowed on the agenda. That is the way the increasingly autocratic SNP leadership operates.
Sturgeon’s departure was an opportunity for the SNP/Scottish Government to reinvent itself as the party/government of independence. We can add this to the depressingly long list of opportunities that the party has squandered. Sturgeon is gone. But the paucity of strategic thinking that characterised her spell of failing Scotland’s cause remains. Lesley Riddoch’s column is painfully redolent of the attitudes which allowed Sturgeon to do so much harm to Scotland’s cause.
Peter A Bell 
Eight wasted years with UK in turmoil and the independence movement is becalmed and beset by divisions stoked by social engineering. Where are the thinkers in the SNP ? They can’t all be there for the perks of the job. No lessons learned from 2014 .Bullshit 11 point plans and waffle from the party of government and even now they still don’t get it.
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Why is Scotland not independent as a country? Are there many reasons – or – is there only one absolutely fundamental reason?
I have asked Scotland that very question in an Independence Live video, I also asked the very same question at a recent rally in Kilmarnock.
Why is Scotland not independent as a country? Answer – the Treaty of Union. When it no longer exists Scotland will be an independent country.
When the Treaty was compiled and ratified it – and it alone – ended hundreds of years of Scotland being an independent country.
The ‘Declaration of a Sovereign Scot’ initiative has involved me in attending every rally held in Scotland for over two years, I have heard the very same answer from fellow Scots, as they signed their individual Declaration of a Sovereign Scot.
That is why the Declaration of a Sovereign Scot starts with these words:
“Exercising my Claim Of Right as a Sovereign Scot, I declare:
I do not consent to the terms of, nor the continuation of, the Treaty of Union established through the Acts of Union in 1707.”
The originals of every individually signed Declaration have been, and will continue to be lodged at the HQ of the United Nations – but – copies of each signed Declaration are kept to be our present day version of the Declaration of Arbroath.
The initiative is being developed in very deliberate Stages – currently involving contact with countries who have secured their indenpendence from the UK.
(And Yes, Peter – I know ony too well that time is of the essence – it’s why I started over two years ago.)
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The only reason, we are not Independent today, is the politicians who we elected to get us Independent, have done damned all about it.
Thus far, they have betrayed us!
It is their fault, not the voter’s fault.
Now those voters, a certain number at least, want to throw these politicians out.
Who can blame them?
The problem with that approach being, the alternatives to replace them, who would be pro 1707, and totally anti Scottish.
They would claim they have Scotland’s interests at heart, but they don’t.
They worship London rule above all else.
Regards Peter’s points above, as I have said previously, too many were in thrall to Nicola Sturgeon. She could do no wrong in their eyes.
They believed in her, and convinced themselves she was going to save us. But as all those promises of action this month, and that month all evaporated, and Brexit was imposed upon us with merely a whimper from the Scottish Government, even some of those Sturgeon loyalists became restless.
When she resigned, those folks saw their hopes destroyed, and with subsequent events, then Humza being put in charge by the Murrell ploy, many more have become dissatisfied, to the point of wanting to vote against SNP.
And yet, even now, we have those same senior figures in SNP continuing with the past policy that has failed us!
We can easily understand why many are of the opinion, voting against SNP next time, is the only way forward, even tho, it will not take us one bit forward.
But as long as SNP insist of following the Sturgeon line, we don’t go forward either, so it leaves the Independence voters, and the movement in general, in a quandary.
We don’t want useless SNP politicians, some of whom are doing real damage to the cause, but we don’t want the alternatives even more as they will certainly do greater harm to our country.
Presently, there seems little way out of this impasse within the Independence political classes, as opposed to the Independence movement itself, which is crying out for genuine leadership and action from the MPs/MSPS, and not getting much of any.
Just now, we have to rely on SNP, and we have to hope the grassroots take back control of their Party, otherwise, if this keeps going the way it does, SNP will indeed face that voter backlash, and ALBA isn’t the alternative we had hoped for, not presently anyway.
And as has been said over and over again,we don’t have the time left to wait for any alternatives to appear.
But if we do have to wait for an alternative, and it may well yet come, (and could even be ALBA) if SNP doesn’t change fast, Scotland might well be in a bit of a chaotic state by that time, and those politicians we elected in the hope we got Independence, but betrayed us, will never be forgiven.
So why we are not Independent, is not the fault of the voters, but of the politicians who have consistently betrayed us, either by simply not doing anything to help us go forward, or those who allowed their leaders to take us nowhere!
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Surely after 8 to 9 years that the expectation that the snp will change, that wont happen hell will freeze over first. We need to rid ourselves of these politicians that have betrayed us and make sure they are never ever involved in politics in Scotland again as in the world i live in they are traitors nothing more nothing less.
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First of all, apologies for taking so long to approve your comment.
You will have to decide what is more important to you – restoring Scotland’s independence or punishing the SNP. It is VERY unlikely that you will be able to have both.
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Firstly nothing to do with punishing the snp it is to do with these people whom are betraying Scotland and its people and that includes all the msps from other parties such as the greens 4 in particular from that party harvie, slater, chapman and greer. If Scotland has to wait longer to gain its INDEPENDENCE while she clears her bowels out and have the right people in place to gain INDEPENDENCE then so be it, yes i wont be happy but if this cleansing is necessary then thats what needs to happen. Why on earth would you want to keep the people in power that have already declared they are not interested in Scotlands INDEPENDENCE.
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Another one who imagines we have all the time in the world. The complacency will kill Scotland’s cause even if the British don’t. But they will. If we give them time. Which you and countless others are quite prepared to do just so you can lash out at a few politicians. It seems such a small price to sell a nation.
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Go on smart arse tell me when the snp is going to go for independence at least my head is not stuck up my arse i live in the real world again tell me when the snp intend going for independence.
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I’m not sure where your head is, sonny. But it must be in a strange place Indeed for you to be so idiotically unaware that the SNP is the party of government and therefore the only party that can actually do anything. Of course, tossers like you believe in magic. You imagine you can just wish away the things you don’t like. And when the grownups tell you you can’t you throw a petulant strop.
I realise you are just too stupid to understand that it’s the SNP or nothing. Too stupid to understand how urgent the situation is. Too stupid to understand that there is no way to replace the SNP before it’s too late. Too stupid to understand why it will be too late. Just too fucking stupid.
I’ll be ignoring you now.
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You are the one thats to STUPID to understand that the people within the snp at present could not care less about independence so to make it really simple for you again i will ask you when will your party of government take us to independence that was the question i asked you yesterday but for some inknown reason you dont seem to be able to answer that. You will be ignoring me for one reason only and that is that i have shown you that what you believe in aint going to happen under this shower of troughers. Even after 8 to 9 years you are still trying to convince people that the snp is the only party to take us to independence. If i was you instead of trying to convince me its going to be to late i would be hounding the snp and telling them. Again if you think calling somebody stupid or sonny because you cant answer the question you were asked makes you a real Tosser because you really know there is no chance of independence before the end of the Sottish parliament term under the current troughers.
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Lesley Riddoch once encouraged me – a then SNP member – at one of her book signings about 5 years ago to make the party more “radical”. I presumed this comment related to the urgency of securing Independence, especially as Scotland was about to be ejected from the EU due to the vote in England (and Wales). Perhaps I was wrong.
Either way, where once I felt she was committed to Scotland’s Cause – her short films on Scandinavian countries were very informative – she now just spouts the latest SNP leadership line. Which, as you say, is decidedly ‘Sturgeonesque’.
She is either claiming that the UK Government’s position is either ‘unsustainable’ and just ‘one more push’ will bring them to their knees or expressing (faux?) outrage about Brits’ malign behaviour which diverts from the real and tangible issue of clueless leadership and inaction of our own Scottish Government on the constitutional issue.
It is fair enough that Lesley Riddoch should meet what appears to be a sadly healthy demand for material that fails to address how Scotland’s Cause can be progressed … and progressed to a successful conclusion. (She is not alone among the pro-Independence commentariat in this of course).
Lesley Riddoch apparently has a new book out. Her 2014 publication was “Blossom”. I would suggest “Wither” would be an appropriate title for her latest effort.
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Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
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The Scottish independence movement’s current Gordon Brown figures have either been pretty much instantly forgotten or are as popular as herpes. We elected them. Now we have a Scottish government who think that putting 20p on a tin of soup in Scotland is some kind of constitutional battle.
Here’s the Scottish independence movement’s take on inflation:
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I’m gonna float this one again: given the current fubar SNP & Yes have gotten ourselves into, any plebiscite or GE as indyref approach will die a death and stuff us for 20 years. Best take the bull by the horns and say “well you wanted to wait for a generation, so we’ll have an S30 in 2030 thanks”. Gives us time to mend and find a strategy that actually has a blind dog’s chance.
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Nope. That won’t work. I cant’ work. What will work is actually rather obvious. Because there is only one thing that does. Lesley Riddoch’s article comes within grasping distance of the necessary conclusion, but shies away. she gets that restoring independence will require action through the Scottish Parliament. She gets that the Scottish Parliament doesn’t have the necessary power. Then she’s lost. The only way for the Scottish Parliament to acquire the power to change Scotland’s constitutional status is to TAKE that power. There is no other way. The only question is how we go about the taking. That is what a plebiscitary election should be used for – to mandate the Scottish Parliament to assert its exclusive competence in all matters relating to Scotland’s constitutional settlement.
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Lesley Riddoch once referred to Nicola Sturgeon as a ”bonnie fechter” after she cowardly stabbed Alex Salmond in the back, That’s the sort of person she is
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Here’s a section of Tomkins article in the Herald, quoted in The Times
Writing in The Herald, Tomkins claimed Scotland’s political leaders were “so unaware, so bone-headed and so asleep at the wheel” that they had failed to notice that the constitutional landscape had changed radically.
The court ruling “should have shaken Scottish politics to its foundations and required a more profound reset than even the handing of the baton from Sturgeon to Yousaf”, he said.
“Humza Yousaf [the first minister] has not even begun to understand the implications of this seismic ruling. Nor, of course, has poor Douglas Ross [leader of the Scottish Conservatives] . And nor, perhaps most disappointingly, has Anas Sarwar [Scottish Labour leader].”
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Other than the bit about Sarwar, I fully concur with what Tomkins says.
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