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Calton Hill and Edinburgh city scenic view at sunset Beautiful view of Edinburgh at sunset Edinbourgh United Kingdom.
Labour takes the lead in Scotland
Good news for Britain’s Labour Party: Anew poll from YouGov shows that, for the first time in nearly a decade, the party leads in Scotland, a result that can bolster its already-high odds of winning the UK’s next general election, probably this fall.
Years ago, Labour could count on votes in Scotland, where the Conservative Party is traditionally less popular than in England and Wales, to boost its seat total in the UK parliament. In 2010, a year when Scotland’s own Gordon Brown led Labour, the party won 41 of Scotland’s 59 seats. But as demand for an independence referendum lifted the Scottish National Party to prominence, Labour won just one seat in Scotland in 2015 and the same in 2019.
But the SNP, burdened with the disappointment of the failed referendum, a poor economy, and scandals that engulfed once-popular leader Nicola Sturgeon, has faded, and Labour is again in favor with Scottish voters.
Nationally, Labour already leads Conservatives by 20 points. A restoration in Scotland could help the party and its current leader, Sir Keir Starmer, secure the landslide win they seek and a return to 10 Downing Street for the first time in 14 years.Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reacts during a press conference at St Andrews House in Edinburgh.
Sturgeon's arrest roils Scottish politics
On Sunday, Scotland's former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was briefly detained over a police investigation into some 600,000 pounds ($750,000) worth of missing funds at the Scottish National Party. She was released without being charged after seven hours of questioning.
The arrest sent political chills throughout the SNP, which has been thrown into chaos since Sturgeon abruptly resigned in February as Scotland's longest-serving and first female leader. At the time, her departure was seen by many as a clear sign that a new Scottish independence referendum — the SNP's raison d'être — is highly unlikely in the near term. That seems an even longer shot now following the police probe into the party's finances.
Sturgeon was replaced by Humza Yousaf, who after several months in charge has struggled to unite the party. Just hours before his predecessor was picked up by the cops, he offered to cut a deal with the opposition Labour Party if the next British election delivers a hung parliament (presumably in exchange for another vote to leave the UK).
But the problem is that the SNP stands to lose many votes and seats to Labour, which used to dominate Scottish politics until the early 2010s. Upshot: The window of opportunity for a fresh plebiscite that opened up after Brexit is fast closing.
Supporters of Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga throw stones at riot cops in Nairobi.
What We’re Watching: Kenyan protest politics, twice the Ma in China, SNP names new leader
Anti-government protests escalate in Kenya
On Monday, hundreds of protesters stormed a controversial farm owned by Kenya’s former President Uhuru Kenyatta. The rioters stole livestock, cut down trees, and then set the land on fire.
The motive likely has something to do with the ongoing protests against the government of President William Ruto captained by opposition leader Raila Odinga, who narrowly lost the 2022 election to Ruto, Kenyatta’s ex-VP. (The members of this political threesome have all worked with each other in the past in Kenya, where elite business and politics are about as tight as can be.)
This behavior is nothing new for Odinga. While the protests are outwardly about the rising cost of living, Eurasia Group analyst Connor Vasey says that the opposition is just “taking his politics to the streets,” using inflation and other grievances as a “lightning rod to ensure turnout”. And while he is officially trying to overturn Ruto’s victory, Vasey believes that what Odinga really wants is an unofficial executive role in government.
From here, we can expect a test of political willpower. Odinga is threatening more rallies, while Ruto says he’ll continue to deploy the security forces against the protesters. The president hopes that if his rival doesn’t get his political concessions soon, popular support for his mobilization will subside.
The Mas go to China
On Monday, Alibaba founder Jack Ma appeared in public in China for the first time since late 2020, when he got caught in the crosshairs of Xi Jinping's tech crackdown after criticizing Chinese regulators. The billionaire, once China's richest man, paid the price by giving up control of his fintech company Ant Group, which was also blocked from going public and fined a record $7.5 billion for antitrust violations.
Meanwhile, Ma Ying-jeou (no relation) became the first former president of Taiwan to set foot in China since 1949. Ma — who is also the only Taiwanese leader to have met the sitting Chinese leader — is visiting this week as a private citizen, but anything Taiwan-related is always politically sensitive. What's more, his trip comes just days before current Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen travels to Central America and the US amid bubbling cross-strait tensions.
The Ma trips are unrelated and probably coincidental. Still, Jack Ma's resurfacing might be a sign that Xi is no longer going after China's tech titans because he needs them to help the economy recover from zero-COVID. For his part, Ma Ying-jeou probably wants to pitch the opposition Kuomintang party's softer touch with China in contrast with Tsai's hardline diplomacy ahead of the presidential elections in 2024.
Yousaf will lead Scotland’s divided governing party
“We will be the generation to win independence for Scotland.” So pledges Humza Yousaf, who was named leader of the Scottish National Party on Monday following a two-week-long election. Parliament will officially vote him in on Tuesday, naming him Scotland’s sixth first minister, the head of its devolved government.
Press attention will focus on the novelty of his win. Yousaf is the first Muslim to lead a major party in Britain. But he’s also now the first person to lead the SNP following the shock resignation of the still-popular Nicola Sturgeon, whose departure was seen by many as an admission that a new Scottish independence referendum is highly unlikely for the foreseeable future.
Yousaf’s razor-thin victory margin – he won just 52.1% of the vote against rival Kate Forbes – raises the thorny question of whether the party can remain strong without a credible call for a near-term independence vote to keep the party united despite its many differences on other issues.
“We are family,” says Yousaf of the party he now leads. How functional a family? We’re about to find out.
Ukraine dominates the dialogue in Munich
While there are many security risks and global challenges on the agenda at this year’s Munich Security Conference, none have dominated the dialogue more than Ukraine as the war there enters a second year with no clear end in sight. From mainstage speeches to a giant banner hanging across the street from the conference venue that reads, “Ukraine Is You,” unity among Western allies is the clear message.
While there’s truth to that overall, there are many nuances and differences in approach from country to country—Estonia, for example, taking a much more absolutist stance against Vladimir Putin even as France’s President Emmanuel Macron begins to talk about Europe’s relationship with Russia after the war is over.
GZERO Media is on the ground in Munich to cover the conference at this critical moment for Europe and the world, and Chief Content Officer Tony Maciulis caught up with our colleague Mij Rahman, Managing Director for Europe at Eurasia Group, to break down some of the big stories of the day.
The two talked about European unity, the ongoing impact of Brexit, and who, if anyone, is emerging as a clear leader for the EU overall.
FILE photo of Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Sturgeon’s bombshell upends UK politics
In last Friday’s edition, we documented the trials and tribulations now facing Britain’s Conservative Party. This week brought news that further disrupts UK politics.
On Wednesday, Nicola Sturgeon dropped a political bombshell by announcing she’ll resign as Scotland’s first minister in the coming weeks. Much speculation has followed on why she’s quitting, but the larger question is what impact this will have on the ability of her party (the Scottish National Party) to deliver on the issue that has fueled her entire career: Scotland’s independence from the United Kingdom. Beyond Scotland, the Sturgeon news creates a major new headache for Conservatives.
Scottish independence?
First, there’s the question of Scotland’s future. “Sturgeon's resignation is a big setback to the prospects of Scotland leaving the UK in the foreseeable future,” says Eurasia Group’s Mij Rahman. Recent polls signal that Scottish public support for independence has advanced little since 55% voted against it in a 2014 referendum. (Recent polls, here and here, show the “no” votes still lead by 6-12 points.) And that’s after Britain voted for a Brexit that 62% in Scotland opposed and after 13 years of rule by Conservatives, who remain unpopular across much of Scotland.
After the UK Supreme Court ruled last November that Scotland can’t hold another independence referendum without (highly unlikely) approval from the UK government, Sturgeon proposed a plan to use upcoming elections in Scotland as a de facto independence vote. But many within her party have warned that she underestimates the risk of a bad result that might set the independence movement back still further, and many will now see Sturgeon’s resignation as an admission that she can’t lead the movement across the finish for the foreseeable future.
What’s next for Sturgeon’s party? Probably a bitter fight to replace her, one that could divide support for the SNP over other issues. In the meantime, her absence will slow the demand for another vote. “It will be much harder to keep the independence flame burning without her at a time when support for a breakaway appears to be on the wane,” notes Rahman.
Good news for Labour
Beyond Scotland, Sturgeon’s departure and tougher days for the SNP might prove great news for the Labour Party, which already enjoys a sizeable polling lead ahead of national elections, which are expected next year. (UK elections must be held no later than January 2025.) Rahman says that “Labour’s consistently weak performance in Scotland has been the major reason” that some still doubt it can win a parliamentary majority.
Before the SNP became the dominant force in Scottish politics, it was Labour that won the lion’s share of support from Scottish voters in national elections. Today, the SNP holds 48 of Scotland’s seats in the UK parliament, and Labour holds just one. But the disarray within the SNP following Sturgeon’s exit and a possibly ugly battle to succeed her might give Labour a critical few extra seats in a national vote it’s already favored to win.
Scotland's First Minister and Scottish National Party (SNP) Leader Nicola Sturgeon.
What We’re Watching: Sturgeon's resignation, NATO-Nordic divide, India vs. BBC, Tunisia’s tightening grip
Nicola Sturgeon steps down
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced on Wednesday that she is stepping down. She’s been in the role for over eight years, having taken power after the failed 2014 independence referendum. Speaking from Edinburgh, Sturgeon said she’d been contemplating her future for weeks and knew "in my head and in my heart" it was time to go. A longtime supporter of Scottish independence, Sturgeon was pushing for a new referendum, which was rejected by the UK’s top court late last year. In recent weeks, she and her colleagues had been debating whether the next national election in 2024 should be an effective referendum on independence. Sturgeon will stay in power until a successor is elected — likely contenders include John Swinney, Sturgeon’s deputy first minister, Angus Robertson, the culture and external affairs secretary, and Kate Forbes, the finance secretary.
Turkey divides Finland and Sweden
On Tuesday, NATO and other Western officials publicly acknowledged for the first time that Finland and Sweden might join the transatlantic alliance at different times, a notable public admission that negotiations with Turkey over Sweden’s NATO accession haven’t gone well. Neither Nordic country can become an alliance member without unanimous support from all existing members, and NATO-member Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a beef with Sweden. Erdogan is angry that Sweden’s government has provided asylum for dozens of Kurdish leaders he considers terrorists, and it didn’t help when a right-wing activist burned a Koran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, an act Sweden’s government treated as an offensive act of free speech that’s protected by law. Erdogan may also see a political opportunity to boost his reelection chances by defying European leaders in general and Sweden in particular. (Turkey’s elections are expected in May or June.) For NATO, Finland’s membership is arguably the more urgent priority. Though Sweden monitors occasional Russian naval intrusions into its territorial waters, it’s Finland that shares an 810-mile land border with Russia. European leaders hope that, if Erdogan wins his election, a deal can be cut in the coming months to allow Sweden to join the club.
India takes aim at BBC
Indian tax officials raided the BBC’s local offices on Tuesday in what they said was a probe into the British broadcaster’s business practices. But the move comes amid a broader government campaign to censor a new BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in anti-Muslim riots that killed more than 1,000 people in the state of Gujarat while he was governor in 2002. Modi has always denied stoking – or neglecting – the violence, and India’s Supreme Court has reached a similar conclusion. In the weeks since the doc aired in the UK, Modi’s government has cracked down swiftly in India, blocking it from being viewed online in the country, halting screenings at Indian universities, and forcing both Twitter and YouTube to remove it locally. Modi has often used internet laws to muzzle criticism, and tax officials have searched critical media outlets before. Last year the subcontinent slipped eight points to 150 out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. How will the UK government respond?
Tunisia crackdown intensifies
Robocop is not messing around now. Tunisian President Kais Saied, whose monotone style earned him that nickname, has unleashed a ferocious crackdown on his critics and opponents in recent days. On Tuesday, sweeping arrests ensnared the leader of Ennahda, an opposition Islamist movement that once held power in the country. Saied, a constitutional lawyer who was elected as an outsider candidate in 2019, has led a massive overhaul of Tunisia’s government, diminishing the power of the legislature and the courts. He says he’s trying to make government more decisive and efficient in the only country that emerged from the Arab Spring with a democracy. His critics say he is plunging the country of 12 million right back into an authoritarian winter. See our full profile of Saied here.
Scotland's First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, launches her manifesto during the Scottish Parliamentary election in Glasgow, Scotland.
Scotland's rocky road ahead
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's first minister, says another independence referendum for Scotland is now a matter of "when not if," and that after leaving the UK, Scotland will launch a bid to rejoin the EU. But there are formidable obstacles ahead.
Getting to a vote will force a complex game of chicken with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. If a majority of Scots then vote for independence — hardly a sure thing – the process of extricating their new country from the UK will make Brexit look easy. Next, come the challenges of EU accession. In other words, Scotland's journey down the rocky road ahead has only just begun.
Obstacle 1 – Getting to a vote. Scotland can't stage a legally binding referendum without approval from the UK parliament, which can't happen without a go-ahead from Boris Johnson. Here's where the political game begins. Johnson knows an independence vote in Scotland could still go either way. Polls suggest support for independence winning by the narrowest of margins.
If Johnson says yes to a referendum, he could become the PM who lost Scotland and broke up the UK. That would likely end his political career. If he says no, he risks driving up support inside Scotland in favor of breaking away — and he knows he can't say no forever. The UK can't simply hold Scotland hostage. At least not indefinitely.
For now, Johnson can say, "Nicola, shouldn't you be focused on COVID and recovery?" To which Sturgeon will reply, "Yes, Boris, we are focused on COVID. But when it's under control, we want to vote." Johnson can throw money at Scotland and offer it more autonomy, but it's unlikely that either will change many Scottish minds on a question as large as independence.
Obstacle 2 – Winning the referendum. In 2014, Scotland voted to remain within the UK by a margin of 55-45. Much has changed since then. Though Scotland voted 62-38 for the UK to remain within the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum, the far larger number of votes in England carried the day, and Brexit pulled Scotland unwillingly from the EU. That's the main reason there's been a shift in Scotland in favor of independence since the first referendum.
But no one knows what might happen during a new campaign. Johnson's government will pull out all the stops to persuade Scots that independence is much riskier than they think, and he'll insist Scotland will be economically stronger inside the UK than outside. If Scotland votes to remain, even by the tiniest of margins, it will be at least a generation before another referendum can be contemplated.
Obstacle 3- Leaving the UK. Extricating Scotland from the UK will be far more costly and risky than the UK leaving Europe. After all, the UK joined the EU in 1973, while Scotland has been part of Great Britain since 1707. The legal and regulatory ties will be extraordinarily hard to untangle. The value of Scotland's exports to the rest of the UK is four times more than to the EU. That would change over time if Scotland joined the EU, but a hard border between England and Scotland would create an immediate shock and lasting damage. At least one recent study found that Scottish exit from the UK would be far more economically damaging than Brexit, even if Scotland eventually rejoins the EU.
Adding to the friction, Johnson's government, mindful of the movement for Irish reunification and independence chatter in Wales, will make everything to do with Scotland's exit as contentious and painful as possible.
Obstacle 4 – Joining the EU. This might be the easiest to surmount. After all, as part of the UK, Scotland was an EU member for nearly half a century. The process of political, economic, legal and regulatory alignment would be far easier than for any previous EU membership candidate.
That said, accession would depend on a unanimous vote of all current members. Spain, under challenge by Catalan separatists, might wield a veto to avoid setting a precedent for breakaway states. EU concessions to ease Spanish fears could smooth Scotland's path, depending on what's happening in Spanish politics at that moment.
Bottom line. Brexit reminded us that secession movements aren't driven by pragmatism. They're fueled by hope, fear, anger, and pride. Those who want an independent Scotland can overcome all these obstacles. But we shouldn't underestimate the complexity of the problems ahead, or how long it will take to solve them.Demonstrators march for Scottish Independence through Glasgow.
Scotland votes, with independence on its mind
Scots go to the polls this week to vote in their first parliamentary election since Brexit. We already know that the incumbent Scottish National Party will win most seats. Will its majority be big enough to demand another independence referendum?
Almost seven years ago, Scotland turned down independence in a plebiscite by a 10-point margin. But that was before the entire United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in 2016 — against the wishes of most people in Scotland.
Many Scots felt cheated in the 2014 referendum because a lot of them voted to remain in the UK precisely to also stay in the EU. As post-Brexit political chaos that followed has further boosted nationalist sentiment in Scotland, the outcome of Thursday's vote will be closely watched in four capitals.
Edinburgh. COVID has dominated the campaign in Scotland, with independence lurking in the background. One of the reasons that the SNP is riding so high in the polls is Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's widely praised pandemic response strategy, which resulted in Scotland reporting less deaths per capita than the UK average. Perceptions of her competence were often compared with those of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, already unpopular with Scots before COVID and whose often-haphazard approach to the crisis has made his approval ratings there plummet.
Many Scots believe they would have handled COVID even better without the British government meddling in their affairs. Post-Brexit support for Scottish independence has surged in particular among women, in large part due to Sturgeon's much stronger approval rating with females than her estranged predecessor Alex Salmond.
With about half of Scots currently in favor of leaving the UK, Sturgeon seized on the opportunity by proposing in March a draft law to hold a second plebiscite. Unsurprisingly, her move was lambasted by opposition unionist parties, who accused the chief minister of politicizing the pandemic to drum up support for her separatist cause. Now she says ending COVID is the immediate priority.
London. In the UK, however, the election is all about Scottish independence. An outright SNP majority in Holyrood is all but assured to encourage Scottish nationalists to demand another referendum. That'll set up the center-left Sturgeon on a collision course with the center-right Johnson, who has called the 2014 vote a "once-in-a-generation" event.
The British PM has a lot on the line with Scotland's election. His predecessor David Cameron took a huge gamble on the 2014 referendum: the result encouraged him to agree to the Brexit vote, which then ended Cameron's political career. That's what Johnson faces if his government loses a second Scottish plebiscite. The problem is, will he be able to resist the immense political pressure that the SNP majority would put on him to grant another referendum that most Scots want?
More immediately, Johnson's Tories are running neck-in-neck for second place with the opposition Labour Party. Coming in third would be a major embarrassment for the PM. Labour leader Keir Starmer is against holding a fresh independence vote in the near term, but unlike Johnson is open to the possibility later on.
Belfast. Northern Ireland also voted against leaving the EU — albeit by a slimmer margin than Scotland — but popular support for reunification with the independent Republic of Ireland is rising due to growing discontent over the economic fallout of Brexit and demographic trends that favor Catholic republicans over Protestant unionists. If the Scots get another referendum soon, the Northern Irish will be next in line.
Brussels. If Scotland were to eventually vote in a referendum to break away from the UK, one of the main reasons would be so it could rejoin the EU. Regaining membership, however, would not be a quick process, despite Scotland having been part of the EU — as a UK territory — from more than 40 years.
That's because it would require consent from all 27 EU member states, among which Spain could possibly veto to avoid setting a precedent for Catalonia. But as long as the Scots don't vote without permission from the central parliament, as Catalans did in 2017, Edinburgh may be able to negotiate a compromise — probably economic concessions — with Madrid that doesn't give hope to Catalan separatists.
Scexit? Whether or not a referendum is called soon, the likely outcome of Thursday's election means that talk of Scotland's independence will dominate UK politics for the next few years — as Brexit did from 2016 onward. Those who warned then that Brexit would ultimately break up the UK were clearly onto something.