By the time I arrived in Edinburgh in 1998 to open the Irish Consulate there, I had spent half a lifetime studying Irish history, yet Scotland had been largely invisible to me. Anglo-Irish relations had been my perennial frame of reference. In the past three decades, Scotland has been regularly in our line of sight, due in no small part to the rise of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in which Nicola Sturgeon, a shy, awkward girl from Ayrshire in her own description, played a central role.
While generally wary of political autobiographies because of their irresistible urge to burnish reputations and to be irrevocably self-regarding, I found Nicola Sturgeon’s candid account of her life in politics engaging, even endearing. She is more willing than most public figures to acknowledge her own failures and frailties and even admits to suffering hangovers on account of occasional overindulgence and to having had counselling. There is an aching recollection of the loss of her baby during pregnancy and a bruising account of being subjected to nasty sexual innuendo by an unnamed party colleague shortly after her election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
I came across Sturgeon as an up-and-coming SNP politician in the late-1990s, but she was not among those nationalists who actively cultivated links with our new Consulate. She had been tagged as “a nippy sweetie”, a curious Scottish put-down that Sturgeon saw as a badge of honour as she rose through a male-dominated environment as a protege of that alpha operator, Alex Salmond.
Sturgeon is clear-eyed about the late Salmond’s gifts and flaws, with his gambler’s instinct but lack of attention to detail, which contrasted with her own micro-manager’s approach. There were SNP members who saw Scandinavia rather than Ireland as a model for Scotland’s future, but Salmond never failed to highlight the relevance of Ireland’s economic emergence. He was also instrumental in convincing Scottish Catholics that the SNP had shed its erstwhile sectarian blemishes.
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In Frankly, Sturgeon recalls that she became politically active as a 16-year-old and contested the 1992 Westminster election for the SNP when she was just 21. She had to steel herself to overcome limitations to which she repeatedly admits, to become Scotland’s longest-serving first minister (2014-2022). Her political career was defined by referendum defeats on Scottish independence and EU membership, and by a stunning electoral triumph in 2015 when the SNP won 56 of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats. At that time, she was arguably the most popular politician in Britain.
Her last years in public life were defined by an explosive falling out with Alex Salmond over charges of sexual misconduct, of which he was ultimately acquitted. There is no going easy on Salmond in her coruscating account of the bitterness between them after he accused her of being part of a conspiracy to bring him down, which she vehemently denies.
Like Jacinda Ardern and Leo Varadkar, Sturgeon exited from high office unexpectedly when, at 53, she was still close to the peak of her powers, but nonetheless weary of the demands that had been placed on her, especially during Covid. She insists that her decision was not shaped by the controversy that swirled around her within weeks of stepping down as first minister, when police raided her home and arrested her husband, Peter Murrell, the SNP’s general secretary, on suspicion of financial fraud. She endured the indignity of being taken in for police questioning, but action against her was subsequently dropped.
The case against her now ex-husband, for whom she maintains an affection, remains unresolved, which makes that part of her book necessarily incomplete. Although she defends the arrangement that saw a married couple running their party between them, it is hard to believe that it was ever a good idea.
Some of the details of her career may be a bit numbing for non-Scottish readers, but the transformation of that country’s politics, in which she played an integral part, is a noteworthy story. I remember when the SNP was a kind of lifestyle choice for enthusiastic Scots, who belted out Dougie MacLean’s anthem Caledonia at party conferences, but for whom political power was a dim dream. Buoyed by occasional by-election victories, and kept in check by serial disappointments at general election time, the SNP remained a bit player in Scottish politics. As late as 2010 under Salmond’s charismatic leadership, the party captured just six seats at Westminster.
When the Scottish Parliament was inaugurated in 1999, the SNP, some of whose members were dubious about devolution, fearing the risk of diluting demand for independence, looked set to be in permanent opposition, such was Labour’s iron grip on seats on central Scotland where the bulk of the country’s population resides. After the sudden death of inaugural first minister Donald Dewar, one of the architects of devolution, Labour failed to put its best foot forward in Edinburgh. I remember hearing Scottish Labour MPs deride what they saw as a make-believe parliament, while the serious business was being done at Westminster. Public disenchantment with the fruits of devolution enabled the SNP to profit from its singular focus on Scotland and the party duly took power in 2007.
After almost two decades at the helm, the SNP will lose seats in next year’s Scottish elections, but probably hold on to its position as the parliament’s largest party. It will always be tricky for the other parties to outdo the SNP in Scottishness. As nationalists, they don’t risk being seen as kowtowing to London.
The 2014 independence referendum was an event without parallel in British history that very nearly brought about the biggest constitutional change since the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Although the final result, 55 per cent-45 per cent, may seem comfortable, the fact that almost half of the electorate wanted to unravel a 300-year-old union in the teeth of dire economic warnings was surprising. Support for independence had traditionally hovered around the 25 per cent level.
Sturgeon recalls dancing a jig when she learned of a poll 10 days before referendum day suggesting that the independence option was leading by two points. That jolted the No campaign into a last-ditch onslaught which carried the day. It was a stroke of fortune for the No campaign that an emollient David Cameron was prime minister rather than a Margaret Thatcher or a Boris Johnson, whose unpopularity with Scots might have sunk the Union.
Sturgeon acknowledges that, while her side won the emotional argument and triumphed with younger voters, its failure to provide convincing answers to the big questions about an independent Scotland’s currency, its economic sustainability and its EU membership ultimately torpedoed the project. EU Commission president José Manuel Barroso had been prevailed upon by London to state that an independent Scotland would go to the back of the membership queue, a questionable proposition but clearly worrying to wavering voters nervous about the country’s future.
[ From the archive: Scottish independence referendum has deep implications for EUOpens in new window ]
The referendum result had an unanticipated plus for Sturgeon when Salmond resigned as first minister, leaving her as his uncontested successor. Paradoxically, defeat for independence boosted public support for its proponents, who achieved unprecedented heights of electoral popularity.
Frankly provides snappy assessments of political leaders with whom its author interacted. She liked Cameron, but respected Theresa May, even though she is critical of her complete unwillingness to countenance special post-Brexit arrangements for Scotland akin to what Northern Ireland ultimately achieved. Enda Kenny was likable and a “wily character”, but she had more to do with Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin who kept in touch with her during the torturous EU-UK negotiations. She describes President Higgins as “delightful” and “deeply cultured”, exuding “humanity and compassion”. Martin McGuinness, with whom she developed an unlikely friendship, is given high praise for his absolute commitment to peace. Boris Johnson is dismissed as “deeply unserious”.
Sturgeon’s last years in office were vitiated by her failure in the wake of Brexit to find a way to trigger a second independence referendum and by a debilitating political battle about gender recognition legislation which resulted in JK Rowling wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Sturgeon destroyer of women’s rights” which clearly hurt her deeply. Sturgeon argues that the trans issue has been successfully exploited for political gain by forces on the far right.
She sees her post-politics life as a chance, relieved of the burden of living permanently in the public eye, to “dance in the rain”. Independence remains part of her dream for the future but it will take a new generation of nationalists to find fresh momentum capable of securing a second referendum and of winning over the doubters.
Nicola Sturgeon predicts that in 20 years time the UK will have been supplanted by something “stronger, healthier and more democratic”, an “independent Scotland, a more autonomous Wales and a reunified Ireland” joining England in a new “confederation of nations”. I am not sure about that one, but the goal of Scottish independence is unlikely to go away anytime soon, although accomplishing it is not going to get any easier.
Daniel Mulhall was Ireland’s first Consul General in Scotland (1998-2001) and subsequently Ambassador in London (2013-2017). His latest book is Pilgrim Soul: WB Yeats and the Ireland of his Time (Dublin: New Island Books, 2023).
Recommended reading
The Capital of the Mind: How Edinburgh Changed the World by James Buchan (John Murray, 2003). The 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment continues to be important in shaping Scotland’s sense of itself.
The Scottish Nation: 1700-2000 by TM Devine (Allen Lane, 1999). By the leading Scottish historian of his generation, this book is still in print more than 25 years after its publication. It remains the gold standard in modern Scottish history.
Ireland and Scotland in the Age of Revolution: Planting the Green Bough by EM McFarland (Edinburgh University Press, 1994). Examines the impact of the Scottish enlightenment on the United Irishmen and their links with late-18th century Scottish radicals.
The Highland Clearances by Eric Richards (Edinburgh University Press, 2016). The “clearances” are described here as “one of the sorest, most painful themes in modern Scottish history”.
Culloden: Scotland’s Last Battle and the Forging of the British Empire by Trevor Royle (Little, Brown, 2016). In 1746, this last great battle on British soil resulted in the dynastic demise of history’s most famous Scot, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and of the Jacobite cause he personified.
The Road to the Scottish Parliament by Brian Taylor (Edinburgh University Press, 2002). The kind of book that would have been written by a leading Irish journalist of that time had Home Rule been implemented in 1914.
