New SNP leader determined to keep Scotland’s place in EU

Nicola Sturgeon, who will become Scotland's first minister next week, has many claims to fame that could be shared with other successful politicians, but few can be mentioned in the same breath as Kylie Minogue.

Next week, the 44-year-old Sturgeon, who is holding a six-city tour throughout Scotland to launch herself into her new post, will fill Glasgow's Hydro 12,000-seater arena. Every ticket for the biggest political gathering to be held in Britain for decades was snapped up, according to rumours in Scotland, quicker than when the Australian singer last visited.

"It is apocryphal, but I am claiming it to be true. To be fair, she was selling tickets. I was giving them away, so there is a difference," Sturgeon tells The Irish Times, as she sits in a small townhouse near the Perth Concert Hall. Turning to one of her staff, she asks: "They were booked out within half-an- hour, right?" The staffer demurs.

Second referendum

“I’m exaggerating, 24 hours. I am getting carried away with my own hype here,” says Sturgeon, chuckling. She has reason to smile. Yesterday, she took over from

Alex Salmond

as Scottish National Party leader. Next Wednesday, she becomes first minister. The party she leads now has 85,101 members, a threefold increase since September. So far, she has been careful about laying out plans for a second independence referendum to reverse the outcome of the defeat on September 18th, but her people expect it.

For now, she is content to let events develop. Ideally, she wants to be a first minister responding to an outraged Scottish public’s demands for a second go, rather than a partisan politician forcing it upon them.

Opportunities for public revolt are plentiful: the shape of Westminster’s pledge to deliver more powers should be ready shortly, but it is unlikely to satisfy demands.

“The Scottish people will know when they see if it fulfils that promise, whether it passes the test of home rule, because that was the language that was used,” she says.

Many in Scotland do not believe promises will be kept: “The Westminster cabal were pretty cynical when they came up, they knew what they wanted people to hear but they couched it in such a way that they could start to renege,” says Sturgeon.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives' plans to hold an in/out European Union referendum by the middle of 2017, if the party is returned to power next May, is a prospect that provokes alarm in Scotland.

Scotland is not short of EU grumblers, but a majority, despite their doubts, would vote to stay in – but they could be overwhelmed by Eurosceptic English voters. If so, the union’s existence could be imperilled.

“My view on this is quite simple. I don’t want the UK to leave the EU; I will be a very passionate advocate to stay in if there is a referendum,” says Sturgeon.

"I think it would be deeply economically damaging to Scotland, but it would be completely indefensible for Scotland or any part of the UK – Wales, or Northern Ireland – to be taken out of Europe against their will."

‘Family of nations’

An EU exit, she says, should be accepted by all four parts of the union:

England

, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – such double-majority votes are common in federal states. However, the UK is not a federal state: “I don’t think Westminster politicians can have their cake and eat it – the UK is what the UK is, it is a family of nations, that’s the language that was used during the referendum,” she says.

Each has vastly different populations, she accepts: “We are told that it is an equal partnership and that all of that is valued. Then I guess there are some compromises that have to be made in support of that. The logic, of course, is that the need for a four-way Yes vote could mean that England could be forced to stay in the EU if any one of the remaining elements of the UK decided against.

“I can understand people in England thinking, ‘Hold on a minute, that means that we would be forced to stay in Europe against our will’. But why would it be any more right for Scotland to be taken out of Europe against our will?”

So, far, Wales's first minister Carwyn Jones has strongly supported Sturgeon's call, and she is to raise it with Northern Ireland's first minister Peter Robinson in coming talks.

Faced with such a prospect, Scottish voters who said No in September could easily change their mind about independence. “Scotland has changed, I’m not sure if Westminster has realised it yet,” Sturgeon says.