The dream of independence is fading
Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon, also known as the “Queen of the North,” fell deeply. Also because of her husband. The political consequences are very permanent.
Photo from better days: Outgoing Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Morell, chief executive of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2019.
Photo: Andy Buchanan (AFP)
Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon intervened first Surprisingly back — and left her compatriots wondering why she suddenly ended her career. She herself only made it clear that everything had become simply too much for her.
Then they started Candidates for the successor of sturgeon They scratch each other’s eyes in public. SNP supporters watched in disbelief as their party lost more and more self-discipline and reputation by the day. But it wasn’t until several police cars pulled up in front of the house where Sturgeon was living in Glasgow with her husband, Peter Murrell, the week before Easter, that most SNP officials realized that a real catastrophe was about to happen.
The party, which over the years had become the dominant force in Scotland with one electoral victory after another, was in danger of falling into a black hole like no other – and taking with it the dream of many Scots to tear apart an independent Scotland on this occasion. .
Neighbors Sturgeons and Murrell couldn’t believe their eyes when tents and tarpaulins were pitched in front of the couple’s front door and police officers played in spades in the back garden as if a corpse was buried there. Residents of the former prime minister and her husband found the two-day spectacular police action on their streets “like a TV thriller”.
Morel is said to have embezzled the money
Meanwhile, Peter Morrell, who has been chief executive of the SNP since 1999, has been temporarily listed as a ‘suspect’. They were arrested and interrogated for 11 hours. Edinburgh newspapers speculated that Morrell had embezzled money and conducted opaque transactions.
The new SNP and head of government, Hamza Yusuf, a longtime Sturgeon ally, has struggled to distance himself from the ‘opaque’ maneuverings of the former SNP leadership. Then, on Good Friday, accounting firm Johnston Carmichael, which has handled the SNP’s finances for the past 12 years, walked out of the party without comment.
The home of her 92-year-old mother-in-law was searched
More recently, it became known that the police confiscated and removed the mobile home of Sturgeon’s 92-year-old mother-in-law. All of Scotland is now wondering what happens next – and how much of everything Nicola Sturgeon has ever known, will she too be questioned anytime soon?
What is clear, however, is that the most respected politician in the British Isles, unlike many of her less formidable opponents in Westminster, now finds her and her party’s hard-won reputation in tatters. It is an upsetting end for a former head of government who, until recently, enjoyed the status of “Queen of the North”.
Unconvincing successor
For her party, the Scottish National Party, Sturgeon’s downfall would mean a crisis that was sure to lead to a sharp dip in popularity. For a long time the SNP has been identified with sturgeon. behind you, Hamza YusufUnconvincing and utterly inept, to many Scotsmen even before the “Murrell thriller” began, she seemed like a shoddy version of the previous incumbent.
The immediate consequences of an unexpected fortress SNP crash are indeed to be expected. They have reached far beyond Scotland. On the one hand, the SNP has to fear that henceforth it will not be able to present itself as an inclusive and governing progressive counterpart to the Westminster parties as easily as it used to.
Business wants to benefit
Labor, in particular, hopes to capitalize on this and, with new constituencies conquered in Scotland at next year’s general election, has a better chance of taking over government in London. The political balance is shifting.
The second problem for the SNP is that its dream of Scottish independence is likely to fade for the time being. SNP general secretary Mike Russell, speaking of his party’s “worst crisis” in fifty years, already admits that any hope of national self-determination for Scots would be unrealistic “at the moment”. It could be a very long ‘moment’ if the SNP’s influence continues to unravel.
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