Farewell, Worst Minister

W hen Jacinda Ardern resigned as prime minister of New Zealand last month, she framed her decision in terms of natural human limitations. Politicians “give all that we can, for as long as we can, and then it’s time,” she said. Similarly, in stepping down as leader last week, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said she could no longer deliver everything her job “demands and deserves.”

It’s a nice idea: Politicians growing old gracefully, respecting the seasons of one’s career. Still, no amount of positive spin can gloss over a legacy mired in failure.

In 2014, 55 percent of Scots voted “no,” while 45 percent voted “yes,” to the question of Scottish independence. When Nicola Sturgeon, of the Scottish National Party, succeeded Alex Salmond as Scotland’s leader in 2015, she also succeeded him as leader of Scotland’s independence campaign. Brexit brought a chance to reinvigorate the debate, or so it appeared. In 2017, the Scottish parliament voted in favor of a second referendum on independence, but later that year the SNP lost 21 seats and 12 percent of its vote share in the general election.

Of course, the real power to hold a second referendum lies in Westminster, which Sturgeon has known all along. That’s why, last year, she took the U.K. government to court to fight for the right to hold a second referendum. Predictably, she lost. Her response to this legal dead end was to claim that the next U.K. general election would be a “de facto referendum”: If pro-independence parties did well, that would constitute a mandate for secession. The trouble with this strategy is that it posed a high risk to her party’s ministers and thus caused further internal tensions. Moreover, Sturgeon’s resignation, Salmond said, leaves Scottish independence “with no clear strategy” and “no obvious successor.”

From Day One, Sturgeon has intended her legacy to be that of a bold pioneer of social progressivism. She was proud to make Scotland the first country in the world to mandate the teaching of LGBTQ+ ideology in schools. She was also proud to support the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, a law criminalizing speech deemed offensive to protected minorities. She has been a vocal supporter of abortion-clinic “buffer zones,” in which it is prohibited to protest, engage in prayer, or offer pro-life services to women attending abortion appointments.

In modern, secular Scotland, many of Sturgeon’s efforts have been successful and even uncontroversial. But the one issue that she severely misjudged is transgenderism. In pushing through the Gender Reform Act — a law that would make changing one’s legal gender as easy as filling out a form and as quick as a few months — Sturgeon has been met with serious backlash across the country and within her own party.

This all came to a head last month with the case of Adam Graham, who after being convicted of rape began calling himself “Isla Bryson” and, in accordance with the Scottish government’s current policy, requested to be transferred to a women’s prison.

Sturgeon was well and truly on the back foot. Under pressure, she blocked Graham’s transfer. But on what possible grounds? If all it takes to demonstrate transgender identity is self-declaration, then why should “Ms. Bryson” be denied entry to a women-only space? To this, she had no answer.

The episode served to vindicate Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to veto the Gender Reform Act, a power never used by the British government since Scotland’s devolution in 1999. Sturgeon claimed an assault on democracy, but Sunak was acting in accordance with Scottish public opinion.

In many ways, Sturgeon has squandered her political inheritance. The establishment of the Scottish parliament saw the ascent of the Scottish National Party as a potent force in Scottish politics. This only increased under Alex Salmond: In the 2007 Scottish parliament election, he led the party to form a minority government, and in the 2011 election, he brought the party to outright victory, forming the first majority government in Holyrood. But Sturgeon’s pursuit of transgender extremism induced the largest backbench revolt in the SNP’s 15 years in power and the first resignation on ideological grounds.

Not only has Sturgeon failed in her pursuit of grand “causes” — independence and transgender ideology — but she has also mismanaged significant aspects of Scottish life. Her coronavirus lockdown may have been popular at the time, but it has seriously weakened the Scottish economy. One independent review, CBI Scotland, found the country to be lagging behind other parts of the U.K. in investment, exporting, and innovation.

Sturgeon said she wanted to be judged on closing the educational-attainment gap between privileged and disadvantaged children in Scotland. But over the past eight years, the reputation of Scottish education has only worsened. International comparisons in literacy and numeracy rates became so embarrassing that, in 2017, Sturgeon pulled Scotland from the surveys.

Perhaps grimmest is Scotland’s record on deaths caused by drug overdose, which have increased year on year since Sturgeon came to power. In 2013 there were 527 drug deaths in Scotland; by 2021 there were 1,330. Life expectancy in Scotland has also decreased.

The SNP’s lack of competence has also been accompanied by a lack of integrity, as the party has moved from scandal to scandal. A £107,000 loan the first minister’s husband, Peter Murrell, gave the SNP remains unexplained. Police Scotland is currently investigating a missing £600,000 raised by party activists for a second independence-referendum campaign. The government is accused of wasting £200 million of taxpayers’ money on a bungled ferries contract. There have been several sex scandals involving SNP ministers. Then there is the public charge that Sturgeon misled the parliament (i.e., lied) to aid the criminal prosecution of her former mentor Salmond, thus removing him as a political threat. Salmond was tried for sexual assault and attempted rape but was found not guilty on all charges save one that was deemed “not proven.”

No doubt Sturgeon will be well positioned for a post-political career in progressive activism. She excels in branding and is undeniably a talented communicator. She can also honestly say that she fought harder than anyone else to advance the transgender policy agenda. What she cannot say is that she left Scotland or her party better off.