What Nicola Sturgeon’s exit means for UK politics

This is an audio transcript of the Payne’s Politics podcast episode: ‘What Nicola Sturgeon’s exit means for UK politics’

George Parker
Hello, listeners. Before we start today’s episode of Payne’s Politics, we want to know what you’d like to hear more of. So to help us understand, we’re running a survey that you can find online at FT.com/politicssurvey. There’s also a link in our show notes. The survey takes around 10 minutes to complete, and if you fill it out, you’ll have the chance to win a pair of Bose QuietComfort earbuds. So don’t miss out.

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Now, on with the show. Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has had enough and quit her job.

Nicola Sturgeon
The first minister is never off duty, particularly in this day and age. There is virtually no privacy, and 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.

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George Parker
So what does Sturgeon’s resignation mean for the Scottish and indeed the UK political landscape? Welcome to Payne’s Politics, your essential insider guide to Westminster from the Financial Times with me, George Parker, in the hot seat vacated by Seb Payne for the next few weeks before the pod’s relaunched with a new format and a new name.

In this week’s episode, what now for the Scottish independence movement? I’ll be discussing this with the FT’s Scotland correspondent, Lukanyo Mnyanda and constitutional expert Nicola McEwen, professor of territorial politics at Edinburgh University. And then we’ll look at what Sturgeon’s departure means for the Labour party’s prospects in Scotland. I’m delighted to be joined by Douglas Alexander, the former Labour cabinet minister, to discuss his comeback as a Labour candidate and what’s been happening in his party under Keir Starmer while he’s been away.

It came as a shock at a hastily organised press conference this week when Nicola Sturgeon announced she was stepping down as Scotland’s first minister. Whatever you think of her politics, few would dispute she’s been a formidable politician and communicator with an electoral record which few in the western world can rival. There was plenty of praise for her political legacy, including from the UK prime minister Rishi Sunak.

Rishi Sunak
Let me first start by paying tribute to Nicola Sturgeon for her long-standing public service. I wish her well in the future. Now obviously, Nicola and I didn’t agree on everything, but in the short time that we did work together, I was pleased that we were able to announce two freeports in Scotland.

George Parker
Ah yes, good old freeports. And even Alex Salmond, her political partner and former mentor until relations between the two broke down, had some positive things to say as Nicola Sturgeon headed for the exits.

Alex Salmond
Her communication skill was top notch. She was also good at winning elections, which is kind of important for politicians. So I think these would be remembered as her biggest attributes as first minister.

George Parker
Lukanyo Mnyanda and Nicola McEwen, thanks very much for joining me. Now Lukanyo, first of all, how much of a shock was it to journalists in Scotland when the news came through that Nicola Sturgeon was quitting?

Lukanyo Mnyanda
Oh George, I mean, going into that room, it was amazing looking at those faces. I mean, we didn’t know the press conference was happening. I mean, I had about 10 minutes to get there and try to, like, force my way into the room because normally these things are choreographed in advance. This time, it was just like a rush just to be there. And it soon became clear, like when the first minister spoke as well, that she had told only a handful of people. She mentioned that she might have sent WhatsApps or texts that very morning. So even her people who worked with her did not know what the next steps were, because I don’t think they knew what was happening themselves.

George Parker
So what was the mood like at the press conference?

Lukanyo Mnyanda
It was a bit subdued, I must say. You know, I’ve been doing this job now for about eight months, George, and normally the press conferences tend to be quite lively. And obviously the issue of constitution is always quite an emotional one, even for journalists. And I think maybe a lot of them, even some of those who don’t like it, are gonna miss her, no, ’cause she provided very good copy. (Laughter) So maybe there was a bit of a sadness in the room that you’re seeing this, like, very important figure that actually, whether you loved her or hated her, like, that’s quite an important part of journalists’ jobs in Scotland, you know.

George Parker
So Nicola McEwen, it was quite a long press conference and Nicola Sturgeon gave quite a few reasons why she was leaving. But why do you think she’s quitting?

Nicola McEwen
I think we have to take at face value what she was saying. It was a really personal statement that she gave, talking about the toll that it takes on someone to be in that office for so long. I mean, it’s not just the eight years of being first minister, but the years before that as being deputy first minister as well, so 15 years really at the top of government in Scotland. That’s a long time. You know, she was there during multiple prime ministers, lots of instability at the Westminster system. So it’s taken its toll, I think. She said that it’s not about the recent challenges. There’s certainly been challenges before. There was lots of speculation about her leadership in the run-up to the last Holyrood election when the Salmond inquiry was taking place and her position at that time was in a little bit of doubt, for some people anyway. The electoral cycle I think is probably also quite important. One of the interesting things was when she was talking about the breadth of talent in the party and so on, and she also acknowledged that the profile of some of her colleagues is not as high as it might have been. I think the phrase she talked about was it was being eclipsed by her. So whoever comes in will have to very quickly build their own profile, try to present themselves as a first minister authority figure and in time before the next UK general election, which we’re all expecting to be at some point next year.

George Parker
So Nicola, you mentioned a few of the other issues that have been going on recently, but really the big one, I suppose, is does the SNP have a clear route to independence now? It’s all a bit of a mess, isn’t it?

Nicola McEwen
It’s a challenge, I think. What we noted from the Supreme Court ruling towards the end of last year is that it’s not within the power of whoever is the first minister of Scotland to determine the path towards independence, if that is indeed the path that people in Scotland want to take. It cannot be done without the consent of the UK parliament. The Supreme Court ruled that the Scottish parliament doesn’t have the legislative powers to hold an independence referendum, and so that’s a big dilemma for the SNP and for the independence movement. They know where they want to go, they just don’t know how to get there. And the referendum strategy seems to not be viable for the foreseeable future anyway. Nicola Sturgeon had talked about using the UK general election as a de facto independence referendum. So using that and the SNP’s role in that election as almost on a single issue item around independence and there’s a lot of disquiet within the party about that. So I suspect that that issue of the independence strategy, how you get there from here, is probably going to be the defining issue of the leadership contest.

George Parker
Lukanyo, the leadership contest is coming up, as Nicola says, and there clearly wasn’t a succession strategy. I mean, that’s one of the big problems here, isn’t it, that Nicola Sturgeon simply didn’t have a successor waiting in the wings?

Lukanyo Mnyanda
No, clearly there wasn’t, George. I think there was a survey or polling about potential candidates. I think that the “don’t knows” won by like 69 per cent or something. And the most popular potential replacement was on around about 7 per cent. So you have these names being mentioned, from Kate Forbes or even somebody like Angus Robertson, who’s had a profile in the past. They’re not really that well-known, really outside of the bubble, so to speak. So there isn’t like a clear person. Whereas when you had the referendum in 2014, she was someone’s second-in-command and it was actually the coronation, there was no contest. So this is quite unprecedented. If I understand correctly, this would be the first contest in about 20 years for leadership of this party. And before her, Salmond was such a dominant figure himself. So it’s new terrain and now it is gonna be not just about a contest over leadership; it’s also gonna be a strategy about the future of the party and the future of its strategy, almost like a fight for the soul of the party, so to speak. So whoever wins is going to have to sell a vision about how they get to the next stage: how do they secure independence?

George Parker
And Nicola, you mentioned this big question, this sort of strategic question about how the SNP fights the next UK general election, which we expect next year, obviously. And Nicola Sturgeon’s idea of turning this into what she called a de facto referendum on independence. I mean, where do you think the SNP is going to go on that? Because it’s clearly a very controversial strategy and it leaves the SNP candidates facing the allegation or the accusation from their opponents that they’re just obsessed by one thing — independence — when they should be focused on a whole load of other stuff, including health and education.

Nicola McEwen
So I don’t know is the honest answer. It will become a feature, I think, of the leadership contest anyway. I think the difficulty, a number of difficulties that would confront that kind of strategy, one, you can present yourself to be on a particular issue, but you can’t determine what voters choose. And voters vote for parties for a whole variety of reasons. And let’s not forget, a Westminster general election is an election for local candidates. It’s not a party vote, in the official sense at least. So it’s not altogether clear that other parties or the party of government would recognise the mandate that was claimed in that kind of scenario. So I think there are a number of practical barriers to that. But the frustration is evident. What are the other alternative options? I mean, I suspect that the continued objection from Westminster and Whitehall to an independence referendum is a position that they can maintain so long as independence is an issue that divides Scotland or doesn’t secure a sustained majority support. If that were to change, it’s a harder position to maintain because you start to question whether this is a union based on consent or not. And so I think there’ll be all sorts of debates around that within the party, but it’s not a question that has an easy answer for anybody, really.

George Parker
So Lukanyo, who do you think are the big winners from Nicola Sturgeon’s departure?

Lukanyo Mnyanda
Oh, George, I think Labour will definitely have a bit of a spring in their step. They’re having their conference this weekend. Anas Sarwar has been on the receiving end of losing battles with Nicola Sturgeon. I mean, he’s only been a leader for a couple of years, in fairness to him. But when he took over the Labour party, they were really in the doldrums. And now they will look at this and think, OK, Sturgeon is gone and he probably doesn’t rate the people who will replace her very much ‘cause as we said before, there aren’t any clear candidates. So people will feel like, OK, you can have a new candidate, they’re gonna take over at a time when the SNP is in this period of uncertainty over leadership but also over strategy. And there’s also questions after all this time in office. You mentioned the issues of education and health. So if you’re Labour, you’re probably gonna be going to the conference with a bit of extra spring in their step. I think they maybe consider themselves to be the biggest beneficiaries and I suppose the Conservatives as well with the controversies over the transgender legislation. Labour was really like also voted for the legislation so they could not really take advantage of Nicola Sturgeon’s trouble on that point. So Labour was basically sat on the sidelines, whereas for the first time for in a while I think in Scotland the Conservatives were really at the centre stage. I don’t know whether that sustains them and prevents the expected decline, but they would have enjoyed the last couple of weeks and what it means for the union overall over the long term. I think that’s less clear. You know, there’s an argument that the way some of the unionist parties conduct themselves in terms of triumphalism as opposed to suit in Scotland with respect. I don’t know what that changes because Nicola Sturgeon goes.

Nicola McEwen
I have no doubt that the other political parties will be buoyed by these developments and will have, as Lukanyo said, a spring in their step. I would be somewhat more cautious, though, were I in their shoes, to assume that this means a reversal of fortunes. I think a couple of things to note. One is, that successor will become, one assumes, the first minister of Scotland, and that’s a challenge for them in that, you know, they don’t get much time to learn on the job. They’ll be subject to intense scrutiny from day one. But it does enable them to very quickly build a profound recognition. Second, the SNP is a formidable electoral machine. They have proven that in successive elections. That machine doesn’t change when the leader changes. And the third thing is, the other parties are not in the position that they’re in just because of the SNP’s relative success. They have to look inwards too. What is it that they are doing or not doing that explains their relative position vis-à-vis the SNP in public opinion and vote choice? And those issues are still going to be there for the Labour party, the Conservatives and indeed the Liberal Democrats.

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George Parker
Nicola and Lukanyo, thanks for joining us.

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George Parker
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a political commentator who doesn’t agree that Nicola Sturgeon’s departure is a stroke of good luck for Keir Starmer and the Labour party already riding high in the UK opinion polls. So not a bad time to re-enter frontline politics for Douglas Alexander, a former cabinet minister in the last Labour government who was selected this week as the party’s candidate for the East Lothian seats. It’s almost eight years since Mr Alexander lost his Paisley seat in the 2015 SNP landslide to a 20-year-old student, Mhairi Black. But now he’s back and a few things have changed while he’s been away.

So Douglas, thanks for joining us. Can we start with our encounter in the coffee shop at Waterstones in Glasgow in 2014? I think it was the eve of the referendum on Scottish independence and you were taking a break from running the campaign and you came down, said, “Don’t report this at the moment, but what you’ll soon discover is there are very strong currents that people aren’t fully aware of in Scottish politics”. Can you explain what you meant back then?

Douglas Alexander
Of course, and it’s good to speak again, George. At that time I had a very powerful image of those of us who are trying to lead the pro-UK side of the referendum campaign as being in a very small rowboat with a couple of oars. And in some ways, when we had that conversation many years ago now, I knew that Scottish politics had changed. I didn’t realise that Scottish politics was in some ways a leading indicator of how politics was gonna change more broadly. And as I now look back on that referendum of 2014, whether it was the sheer polarisation or the intensity of the campaign, but also the use of alternative facts and the emergence of social media, it was very much a leading indicator of what we witnessed a couple of years later across the UK with the Brexit referendum or indeed Trump’s election that year in 2016.

George Parker
So Nicola Sturgeon’s departure has been generally received as good news for Labour. Do you agree with that?

Douglas Alexander
Ah yes, I think it’s fair to recognise that. I think there were quite a lot of smiles on Labour faces here in Scotland this week. But I think there needs to be a cautious recognition that the appeal of nationalism is structural rather than personal. And while of course the nationalists will not be able to choose a candidate either with the visibility — not least after the pandemic — or the authority of Nicola Sturgeon after eight years in the job, we need still to understand and respond to what took support for independence to 45 per cent back in 2014. And that number has then been broadly replicated in support for the SNP in subsequent elections.

George Parker
So do you think the SNP is making a big mistake if it tries to turn the next Westminster election into a de facto referendum on independence?

Douglas Alexander
Yes, I do, actually. I don’t think that makes a lot of sense but I think it reveals the extent to which the finest minds in the SNP — and I don’t mean that disrespectfully, they’ve been very formidable campaigners in Scotland over recent decades — have literally run out of ideas. There’s no realistic prospect of another independence referendum happening any time soon despite Brexit, despite Boris Johnson, despite austerity. Support for independence is basically exactly where it was the day that Nicola Sturgeon took over as leader of the Scottish National Party and first minister, and a very profound level. Scottish politics has been stuck for the last eight years and the SNP haven’t quite figured out an answer — not least to the economics of independence — that become a whole lot harder, and they don’t really know how to get themselves out of the position they found themselves after the Supreme Court gave its ruling just a few months ago.

George Parker
So can I ask you about Labour? How did Labour manage to go from 56 seats in Scotland in 1997 when you were first elected to Westminster parliament, to just one seat in 2019?

Douglas Alexander
Well, in electoral terms it’s pretty straightforward. If eight or nine months after that referendum that, if you remember, had a record 84.7 per cent turnout, if I recollect, the highest turnout since universal suffrage was introduced across the UK, which had both animated and energised but also polarised Scotland. If after that, fairly briefly, you have a second poll, in this case the general election in 2015, where 45 per cent of the electorate are determined to relitigate the defeat they’ve just suffered. In a first-past-the-post system if you get 45 per cent of the vote in every seat, you pretty much win every seat. And that’s largely what we saw in the seat that I represented at the time. That was exactly the number that the SNP got, 45 per cent of the vote. So that’s the psephology, it’s not particularly complicated. The politics of it, I think, actually were replicated in the Brexit referendum subsequently, which is that referendums have an afterlife. They burn like battery acid through old affinities and belongings. And if you like, there was a whole cohort of voters who had previously self-identified as Labour voters who came to see themselves as Yes voters during the independence referendum, and saw the natural home for them as becoming SNP voters in the subsequent election. And we paid a very, very heavy price for that.

George Parker
And how much responsibility, though, does Labour bear for this? I mean, did you take your own voters for granted?

Douglas Alexander
No, I don’t. It’s a common argument, but I don’t genuinely think that’s true. Of course, there were some within Labour’s ranks who were complacent. But I think if you were to look at some of us, we were found wanting by the electorate, but not for lack of effort. I think the hard truth for those of us who were responsible for stewarding Labour at the time was that a whole number of our voters perfectly, seriously and honestly gave up on Labour as a vehicle for hope for themselves, their families and their communities, and instead vested that hope in the prospects of independence. I think the opportunity for Scottish Labour these days is to give a better offer to exactly those voters because, if you like, although the SNP have talked a lot about hope over recent years, they’ve actually traded in despair — despair that Labour always loses, despair that the Conservatives always win, despair that change across the UK is impossible. And I think one of the reasons that Nicola Sturgeon has stepped back is because that story, which has been very powerful in winning votes across Scotland over the last decade or so, is less true today than it’s ever been during that decade. We’ve got in Keir Starmer, someone who looks and sounds like a prime minister in waiting. We’ve got sustained opinion poll leads right across England, and I think there is a sense that change is coming and I think that voters are more open to Scottish Labour’s message than perhaps they’ve been for a long time.

George Parker
Now then, quite a lot happened since you lost your seat back in 2015 in the Labour party. And of course this week we had Keir Starmer celebrating the fact that the Equalities and Human Rights Commission took the Labour party out of special measures in relation to allegations of antisemitism. Do you think that was a significant moment?

Douglas Alexander
Well, I watched Keir Starmer’s response and to be fair, I don’t think celebrate is probably the verb that I would use to be fair to Keir. Rightly and appropriately, he set out at the very beginning of his leadership that almost his first task was to clean up the mess in terms of antisemitism. And as somebody who’s been a party member for a long time, I genuinely feel shame, mortification that the Labour party had found itself within 100,000 miles of credible claims of antisemitism. So I think there was an overwhelming sense of relief this week in the Labour party that the hard yards and the hard work that had been done by David Evans, the general secretary, by Keir Starmer, by the whole of the national executive committee, had actually yielded the kind of progress that was absolutely critical. Voters don’t just judge you in terms of what’s in your brains. If they don’t trust you as being decent, non-discriminatory and having an appropriate and rightful sense of how you should conduct yourself as a party, then they simply don’t vote for you.

George Parker
And Keir Starmer made it clear this week, didn’t he, that Jeremy Corbyn wouldn’t be a Labour candidate at the next election. Is that good news?

Douglas Alexander
I think it’s inevitable news, to be honest. In the remarks that were made by Keir Starmer in response to the EHRC report, he was very clear that anyone who wasn’t willing to fully accept the depth of the problem that Labour had and expressed zero tolerance and impatience to change that, was part of the problem and not part of the solution.

George Parker
And Douglas, you’re a Brownite, or you were. Do you think Labour is now back on the moderate ground again for good, or is the Labour left just waiting for the centre to give way?

Douglas Alexander
No, I think under Keir Starmer’s leadership we’ve seen really a three-stage process. Firstly, there’s been the cleaning up of the party and secondly, there’s — like the good prosecutor that he is — holding the government to account. And I think the third responsibility now is setting out an agenda for the whole of the country. But every one of those steps has built on the previous steps. And in that sense the Labour party today is pretty unrecognisable from the Labour party of 2019 that Keir inherited, and he deserves a lot of credit for that. So I think in that sense, he’s very much the captain of the ship. He’s in charge and is setting the direction for the Labour party, but I think combined with that rule authority, the fact he passes the blink test and people can see him as prime minister makes me personally hugely optimistic about how he’ll lead us in the future.

George Parker
And just finally, Nicola Sturgeon talked about the brutality that you sometimes face as a frontline politician these days. Did you have any doubts about the idea of going back into frontline politics?

Douglas Alexander
Yeah, that’s a part of Nicola Sturgeon’s speech that I have to say, I felt not just sympathy for, but empathy with. You know, the truth is, it’s not an easy choice to say you’re gonna try and step back into the arena. I feel incredibly blessed by the opportunities that have come my way over the last seven or eight years. I’ve had the chance to teach at some of the world’s greatest universities. I’ve had the chance to watch my kids grow up. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the last few years, but at a fundamental level, I continue to believe that public service matters and that you can make a difference. But I can’t pretend that I’m particularly enthusiastic about the thing of keyboard warriors of social media, and I think I’ve got even less tolerance now than I used to have for people who see politics as some kind of game. There’s a lot of work to be done. That’s what’s brought me back and offered to try and win the support and trust of people in East Lothian because politics matters and fundamentally, as we’ve seen over the last few years, if we don’t have politicians worthy of that responsibility, the country pays a very heavy price.

George Parker
Douglas Alexander, thanks very much. And that’s it for this episode of Payne’s Politics. If you like the podcast, we recommend subscribing. You can find us through all the usual channels to receive episodes as soon as they’re released. And we also appreciate positive reviews and ratings. Payne’s Politics was presented by me, George Parker, and produced by Anna Dedhar and Manuela Saragosa. The sound engineer is Breen Turner. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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