With the resignation of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the decades-long campaign by Scottish nationalists to secede from the United Kingdom is losing its star politician and strongest communicator, at a time when efforts to hold a new vote on independence are at an impasse.
The Times of London said Thursday that Sturgeon's departure was a "huge boost to unionism," and a "generational setback" to the independence cause. Financial Times columnist Robert Shrimsley said simply: "Nicola Sturgeon ran out of road."
Sturgeon took power in the wake of that defeat and tried to forge a path to a second vote. Brexit looked like it might give her a chance: The U.K. as a whole backed leaving the European Union in a 2016 referendum, but voters in Scotland strongly favoured remaining. Sturgeon argued that Brexit had made a new referendum essential because it had dragged Scotland out of the European Union against its will.
Instead she unsuccessfully challenged the British government at the Supreme Court for the right to hold a new referendum. Then she said she would use the next U.K. national election, due by 2024, as "de facto" plebiscite on independence -- though it was unclear exactly how that would work. He said that momentum could weaken even more if the opposition Labour Party wins the next U.K. election, due by 2024, as polls currently suggest it will. He said Labour leader Keir Starmer is a more appealing figure to many Scots than "very English, divisive and right-wing" former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Sturgeon's long-time antagonist.
But Sturgeon's plan to make it easier for people in Scotland to legally change their gender caused a storm inside the party that may have hastened her decision to leave. What to do about the bill -- which has been passed by the Scottish parliament but blocked by the U.K. government -- will be another challenge for Sturgeon's successor. Some in the party strongly support it, while others see it as a distraction from the party's main goal: independence.
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