Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon didn’t beat around the bush: Official Washington may still be cool to the idea, but America would have nothing to fear from an independent Scotland. Indeed, it would really be a win-win for all involved. As Sturgeon told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations Thursday, should such a hypothetical occur in the future, the U.S. “would go from having one close ally, the United Kingdom, to having two close allies, Scotland and the remainder of the United Kingdom.”
If Sturgeon’s post-U.K. election victory lap around the United States this week wasn’t meant to lay the groundwork for another bid at Scottish secession from the United Kingdom, you could have fooled me.
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But this time, Sturgeon, who assumed the leadership of the Scottish National Party after last September’s failed independence referendum, appears to have opted for a more patient (and arguably more pragmatic) approach to advancing the so-called “dream” of an independent Scotland than did her blustery predecessor, Alex Salmond, who was known for hobnobbing with the likes of right-wing media magnate Rupert Murdoch, is fond of taunting the pro-union Westminster leadership, and has otherwise demonstrated a reliable penchant for sticking his foot in his mouth.
Just last week, Salmond, a member of the British Parliament, drew cries of sexism for telling Conservative MP and Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise Anna Soubry to “behave yourself, woman.” Sturgeon, ever the good soldier, has duly defended Salmond on her trip as a great champion of women, a man who has “not got a sexist bone in his body.” As she said in an interview with the Huffington Post, “I understand it was language that not everybody thinks should be used but it was in a boisterous House of Commons debate.”
It was a rare off-message moment during a week in which the impossibly petite and coiffed Sturgeon, widely admired and reviled (depending on one’s point of view) as “the most dangerous woman in Britain,” demonstrated her trademark shrewdness in forwarding the Scottish case for greater autonomy. Whether appearing on the ” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” conferring with International Monetary Fund and State Department officials or speaking at the World Bank and Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Sturgeon has been in full-on saleswoman mode. She’s defended Scotland’s ability to stand on its own two financial feet (despite slashed forecasts for North Sea oil revenue), championed the land of “Braveheart” as a great place to live, work, invest, visit and study (Sample grab: “We’ve got Scotch whiskey; we’ve got haggis; we’ve got great scenery”), and generally painted a broad-brush picture of the wee country as the embodiment of all that is good in the modern world, which, she didn’t shy away from asserting, the country practically “invented” (think television and the discovery of penicillin).
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Fresh off her party’s stunning Westminster election rout of Labour in its former stronghold of Scotland this past May, which saw the SNP take 56 of the country’s 59 seats in the British Parliament, Sturgeon arrived in the U.S. seemingly intent on reassuring what has at times been a skeptical American audience — President Barack Obama and other prominent U.S. officials have been vocal in their opposition to Scottish independence — that were such a development to occur in some distant, hazy future, it would pose no threat to the United States’ strategic and economic goals in Europe. And just in case there was any doubt, remember how wrong all those “scare stories” had been about American independence way back when?
Rather, it was British Prime Minister David Cameron who emerged in her speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, at least, as the greater threat to world order. Not only did the future of the U.K. depend on Westminster’s responsiveness to Scotland’s demands for increased autonomy, but she reiterated a previous claim that Cameron’s promised referendum on British membership in the EU could very well prompt calls for a second referendum on Scottish independence as the Scots would not be dragged out of the family of Europe against their will. Meanwhile, she emphasized that the SNP was “internationalist and outward-looking,” a “responsible voice” that would not upset the NATO apple cart and supported the international community when it came to taking on Russia and the Islamic State group.
She even sought to reassure a Northrop Grumman representative who raised concerns about “how the defense structure would be disentangled” if Scotland were to become independent. While Sturgeon noted that the SNP did “not support the nuclear deterrent … [or] the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent,” she maintained it was “inconceivable in any future constitutional arrangement that the defense forces of each part of the United Kingdom would not work together very cohesively” and offered to send the woman details on how the transition to a Scottish military would have worked. Moreover, Sturgeon has been careful throughout her trip to highlight the U.S. and Scotland’s shared perspective on the dangers presented by a potential “Brexit” from the European Union. “There’s no doubt that there’s a very palpable sense of concern at the prospect of the U.K. coming out of the EU,” she said on Wednesday after a meeting with top U.S. officials.
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Finally, while at the Council on Foreign Relations, Sturgeon pointedly pitched Scotland as “one of the most politically engaged countries … in the entire world,” where civic nationalism was embraced, and where all, regardless of ethnicity or origin, were welcome. When one man in the audience mentioned that his ancestors had been banished from Scotland in 1662 after the Restoration of Charles II, Sturgeon was quick to offer a conciliatory gesture. “I’m very sorry you were banished,” she said. “As first minister now, I hereby formally lift the ban.” What’s more, should the man return to Scotland, she promised, “I will greet you at the airport.”
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Can Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon Sell America on Independence? originally appeared on usnews.com
