Taking the stage like a rock star to cheering fans, Nicola Sturgeon did what she’d done for almost a decade as leader of Scotland’s independence campaign. She rallied her troops for the next fight.
It was Nov. 23 and the Supreme Court in London had just torpedoed her plan to hold a referendum on breaking away from the rest of the UK. The push for full autonomy in the wake of Britain’s departure from the European Union was now a “movement for democracy,” she told flag-waving supporters outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. “Let’s get to it, my friends.”
Less than three months later, Sturgeon announced her resignation. The official line was that it was time to pass on the baton as head of Scotland’s administration and the Scottish National Party. Yet looming large was a campaign that had failed to convince a divided nation and make the UK’s refusal to permit a vote politically, if not legally, untenable.
