Quote Originally Posted by Mr Soul '68 View Post
I think Alba could hoover up quite a few SNP voters come the next election. Looks like Janette Krankie and Humus Useless have killed the the SNP off as a political force
Assessing Sturgeon seriously I thought she was a shrewd tactician, a clear visionary, but a poor strategist.

Vision
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1. An independent Scotland
2. Rejoin the European Union.

Strategy / Objectives
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Looking at her visions above…

1. Independence - Brexit made her case for independence more compelling but she made the subject tribal and aggressive, wanting to force a vote on an unwilling UK Parliament and Scottish public. Both were a failure.

2. As a result of failing on vision 1, .2 failed as she could not get the powers to do so.

In my view the EU vision would have come eventually, based on long term patience. Rejoin will happen to the UK in some form by allowing frustration with Conservative failure on Brexit to build up in the rest of UK, and waiting for Labour to return. I have been saying for some 18 months now that Rejoin is increasing in popularity in the polls and it will be too tempting for a Labour politician, with EU instincts, and advised by the heavily pro-EU Blair-Mandelson TBI, to not do so. All the ducks have been lined up for about a year now. In recent weeks we can now see this with Starmer now saying they are working on a customs union plan, which is just the first baby steps.

Sturgeon though she could use Scottish Remain voting block to her advantage. What she failed to spot is that many Remain voters are pro-business, and often Lib Dems, Labour and Conservative. Equally the Brexit SNP vote isn’t trivial. She boxed herself in and pinned all hopes on a strategy of Brexit=Referendum=Independence, pinned her future on it and it failed. A clever strategist wouldn’t commit to such a hard and fast plan without certainty, or allowing enough wiggle room to escape the commitment. When the votes are near 50/50 probability that is not enough margin of error for certainty or to build a plan on, or an entire strategy.

Tactics
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In killing Lib Dems and Labour to seize control of Scotland she went way beyond what Salmon did. She was highly skilled in killing her opponents in local and national elections and deserves full credit there

She was a legal advocate, not a political stategist. I doubt she devised the strategy. If she was advised on political strategy, the adviser committed a kitten error and deserves to be fired.