In modern times, Scotland has adopted a new cultural icon into their delicate cuisine of big macs and Irn Bru. This cultural icon is deep frying. In Scotland, not only can you get your fish deep fried, but you can also get: deep fried cheeseburgers; deep fried pizza; deep fried ‘Irn-Bru Battered Butterballs’; (and) deep fried Mars Bars. And it seems that Scotland have adopted this approach of taking normal food and deep frying it into their politics. Take Margaret Thatcher, deep fry her, and you get Nicola Sturgeon. A powerhouse of Scottish independence, loved by all throughout the highlands and lowlands. A dynamic force against the UK, similar to the old politicians of Joseph Chamberlain and David Lloyd George in speech, but more equivalent to the coffee filter of Liz Truss’ Prime ministerial office – nothing was really changed. Sturgeon has spent the last 8 years of her life as Scotland’s first minister, but on the 15th of February she announced she was stepping down from said role. So, what is the political legacy of Nicola Sturgeon? Why has she stepped down now? And who will become Scotland’s next first minister?
Nicola Sturgeon was born on the 19th of July 1970, the eldest of Robin Sturgeon and Joan Kerr Ferguson. Described as a quiet child – and a goth in her teenage years (alongside her protesting for Nuclear Disarmament) – Sturgeon gained a love of literature and reading (which has continued into her adult life). Her school days are pretty planned out. She attended Dreghorn Primary School, then Greenwood Academy, and then the School of Law at the University of Glasgow. Her teenage years were that of politics. As mentioned, Sturgeon joined a campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in her early teens. Clearly getting the taste of politics, at age 16 Sturgeon became a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), quickly rising up the local ranks. Sturgeon has attributed this interest into politics to the, on going at the time, tenure of Margaret Thatcher who – although I joked she was a deep fried version of the Iron Lady – she completely detested politically (joining other notable Thatcher haters, such as the North of England and the country of Argentina). At age 21 Sturgeon became the youngest ever parliamentary candidate in Scotland, running for Glasgow Shettleson (a seat she ultimately lost). This was in 1992, and Sturgeon would spend the next seven years attempting to win seats. She was unsuccessful six times running.
But Sturgeon would find some luck in 1999, with the formation of the Scottish Parliament (otherwise known as that God-awful mess of coach carpeting and wooden furniture that looks more fake than the faux wooden desks in the study area of the Ashville Sixth Form Centre – not to dig at the study area of the Ashville Sixth Form Centre, but if a sixth form centre is on par with a parliamentary building, then there is something wrong with the parliamentary building). Sturgeon won a seat in the newly formed body in 1999, marking the start of the main political journey. Sturgeon would serve under Alex Salmon, a deep fried version of Boris Johnson, as Shadow Education Minister, who she would partner with in 2004 in the SNP leadership election, with Salmond becoming the leader and Sturgeon becoming his depute. So yes, the leaders of the SNP both had – almost – fish-based surnames. Neat. But the SNP were still the opposition in Scotland at this time, but this would only last until 2007 when throughout the Scottish Parliament Election, several swings occurred from Labour to the SNP, and Sturgeon thereby became the Deputy First Minister of Scotland. Between 2007 and 2012 Sturgeon served as Salmond’s Health Secretary, enacting on issues such as Swine Flu. She would then become the Infrastructure Secretary for Salmond between 2012 and 2014, apparently pledging to build a high-speed railway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, as a dig at Westminster not building one, but later abandoning the plan and blaming Westminster.
2014 would become a big year for Sturgeon. Alex the Salmon gave Sturgeon essentially complete control over a Scottish Independence Campaign, which ultimately failed (55.3% vote against), leading to Salmond’s resignation. After Salmond announced his resignation, Sturgeon, was not only alone in her Krankies tribute act (google ‘The Krankies’ if you’re too young to get the reference, or are just normal), but was also in the running to be the next First Minister. Sturgeon put herself forward, and having virtually no other competition, she was sworn in on the 20th of November 2014. Sturgeon would have two Scottish Cabinets in this time, with the first one not being as notable. The second was formed in 2016, the same year as Brexit, in which Scotland was much more EU friendly (62% of Scotland voted to remain, in comparison to the UKs overall 48%). The outcome of Brexit restarted talks of independence almost instantaneously, but actual action was limited. The closest proper action that occurred came with Sturgeon writing the Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017 requesting ‘Section 30’ – known in Parliament as an action that would give Scotland full control over allowing another referendum, not to be confused with ‘Order 30,’ known in Glaswegian McDonalds as a big mac, large fries and an Irn Bru.
To quote Theresa May in response to Sturgeon, ‘now is not the time for another referendum.’ Most of the momentum dropped for the referendum after a poor turnout in the general election of 2017, and it seemed like Sturgeon’s influence was faltering. It didn’t help that Sturgeon’s old Krankies Tribute Act partner faced sexual harassment claims in 2019 – which considering the nature of the Krankies, should have maybe been a bit of a red flag. (Definitely need to put context here now, the Krankies were a Scottish cabaret duo of husband and wife, Janett and Ian Tough, with the main gimmick being Janett dressing up as a school boy in the acts and, although it does sound slightly odd, they themselves have never had any controversy over the issue – but Alex Salmond has faced some controversy, and in reality he has never been in a Krankies tribute act, sorry to burst your bubble). Sturgeon even referred herself to an independent ministerial ethics body over the situation. Sturgeon did have some success in 2019, gaining an 80% majority for the SNP in the general election of said year. Then of course Covid happened, and everything went into lockdown so nothing much happened with Scotland, except the closure of all McDonalds locations serving Irn Bru. So, Scotland deals with Covid like the rest of the UK – poorly. The actual most notable thing of Covid was that Amazon Prime’s Grand Tour drove around there in a special entitled ‘Lochdown.’ Between then and now little happened particularly in Scotland, and Sturgeon just went about doing average political things like going to Cop27 and the likes. But it seemed like Sturgeon was falling a bit behind after Covid. Sturgeon got some slack for not updating a ferry service for Scottish Islanders, and her reignited independence push didn’t really go anywhere – Sturgeon re-requested section 30 but Downing Street is yet to respond, probably because they haven’t figured out who has to pick up Scotland’s calls after the several reshuffles in government.
Now we are catching up to recent events, and to Sturgeon’s last controversy of her tenure as First Minister. Back in 2016, Sturgeon had promised in her re-election campaign – ‘progress is her middle name’ to paraphrase Back To The Future – new reforms to change the way in which trans people change their legal gender. The bill in general was controversial, and the split in the SNP over it caused it to be forgotten about until 2021 when Sturgeon started to push it again. Sturgeon was both applauded and criticised for the bill: some being happy about the progress the new reforms brought; some concerned over the bill, especially over impacts on woman because of it. Umming and Ahhing continued, but the bill was ultimately passed by the Scottish Parliament in December 2022 (86 voting for, 39 voting against). The key word here is ‘Scottish.’ A month after this the UK government implemented some legilslation to prevent the bill being passed by preventing the bill gaining Royal Assent. Sturgeon was vocal in her criticism of the UK government over this, saying that the move undermined Scotland. The only other development past this was the Isla Bryson case where a transgender woman, who had raped two women whilst still identifying as a man, identified as a woman after being caught and asked to be put in a female prison instead of a male prison. This event brought even more criticism to Sturgeon, and Sturgeon condemned this miss usage of the whole issue. Which brings us swiftly on to the 15th of February, when Sturgeon announces her resignation. Although Sturgeon claims the move has nothing to do with the reforms for gender recognition, given the timeframe of events, it is easy to connect the dots between both events. Sturgeon said that the roll in general ‘takes its toll on you’ and that the move was justified – with her remaining in the post until a successor has been chosen.
On paper, Sturgeon probably hasn’t changed much for Scotland in relation to the UK on the whole. But Sturgeon is still well remembered by Scotland even up until now. If proper legislation was not possible, Sturgeon would often take the time to rallying her nation against the old English enemies through any manner of speech – especially with David Cameron, who she publicly described in a speech as ‘pig headed.’ When her resignation was announced, the Guardian took to the streets of Scotland to ask the Scottish people their thoughts: ‘a massive role model’; ‘the best of the bunch.’ Nicola Sturgeon has cemented herself as one of the greatest Scottish icons of modern culture, somewhere between the Loch Ness Monster and the Proclaimers – whose song of walking ‘500 miles’ is silly as Scotland is only 274 miles in length, which is less than 500 (so unless they were doing laps they couldn’t walk 500 miles, or 500 more). It is unclear who will succeed her as First Minister, but the whole process is already facing heat with the press being blocked from viewing the campaign in a meaningful way. But Sturgeon’s forthcoming departure marks an end to another chapter of the long and troubled relations between the UK and Scotland. Her marks left over her focus on independence, alongside her final comments on the issues of the UK undermining the Scottish Parliament will stick to Scotland, but whether Sturgeon’s political epitaph will remain that of the gender recognition reforms or the Alex Salmond sexual harassment scandals is anybody’s guess.
So, for now Scotland waits, Irn Bru in hand (it’s probably too easy to make Irn Bru jokes): awaiting Scotland’s next First Minister: awaiting another referendum on Scottish independence; awaiting any sign of what Scotland’s future may bring. Well. Rishi’s definitely got his work cut out for him.