LONDON – Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon did not intentionally violate official rules or mislead the Scottish Parliament about an investigation of his predecessor, an investigation concluded on Monday, effectively clearing him of allegations so serious that they prompted resignations.
The investigation by a senior Irish lawyer, James Hamilton, followed months of infighting over Sturgeon’s role in a failed internal investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct made against Alex Salmond, a close ally who preceded her as the first Scottish Minister.
“I am of the opinion that the Prime Minister has not violated the provisions of the Ministerial Code in relation to any of these issues,” concluded Mr. Hamilton’s inquiry, referring to the code of ethics under which members of the Scottish government operate.
The report culminates in a bitter dispute between the two dominant figures in recent Scottish politics, a drama that has affected Sturgeon’s fortunes, leading to accusations that she has deceived lawmakers, broken rules and even conspired against her predecessor.
Opposition politicians called for Sturgeon’s resignation, and she was under heavy pressure earlier this month when she testified to a parliamentary committee for eight hours in a separate inquiry into the same events.
Hamilton’s clear conclusions seem to end any prospect of Sturgeon’s resignation and mean that she is likely to survive a vote of no confidence in the Scottish Parliament if a vote goes ahead this week.
However, the crisis cast a shadow over Scotland’s push for independence, as well as Sturgeon’s career, just when the independence campaign seemed close to progress.
Stimulated by a succession of opinion polls showing the majority’s support for independence, Sturgeon hoped that his Scottish National Party, the largest faction of the Scottish Parliament, would win a general majority in the elections scheduled for May and demand a second referendum on whether to break the his country’s 314-year union with England.
In the 2014 independence referendum, 55 percent of Scottish voters were in favor of staying in the UK. But Britain has since left the European Union, a deeply unpopular project in Scotland, where 62% voted against Brexit in a 2016 referendum.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is not a popular figure in Scotland, unlike Sturgeon, whose pandemic management has won his applause.
The internal struggles between Scottish leaders are all the more notable because Sturgeon was protected from Salmond and served as his deputy for a decade, finally succeeding him after his resignation in 2014, when Scotland voted against independence.
Like him, she had a reputation for running the Scottish National Party as a disciplined force in which few public differences were raised in public.
This unit was destroyed in a bitter feud over the Scottish government’s handling of complaints made against Salmond in 2018, alleging sexual misconduct in 2013. He argued that the internal processes were flawed, took the case to court and won, forcing the government Scotsman will pay £ 500,000 – almost $ 700,000 – in court costs.
Salmond, who admitted to being “no angel” and said he would have liked to be more careful with other people’s personal space, always insisted that he did not break the law. When the police sued him, Mr. Salmond was found not guilty on 13 counts of sexual assault, including an attempted rape.
The consequences of this verdict in 2020 have turned into an extremely complicated, but intensely personal, battle between former allies.
As with many political scandals, Ms. Sturgeon’s most damaging charge was that she did not tell the truth – in her case, about the sequence of events during her government’s failed internal investigation into the Salmond case.
Cheating Parliament and breaking ministerial rules are usually considered crimes so serious that they lead to requests for resignation.
Ms. Sturgeon admitted that she did not provide the full picture when she said that she first heard about the charges against Mr. Salmond on April 2, 2018, during a meeting with him at her home. In fact, she had received some advance notice from her former chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, on March 29, she now acknowledges.
Mr. Salmond says that, at this stage, Ms. Sturgeon offered to intervene in the case. She denies it, but at a parliamentary committee hearing, she admitted that she may not have been direct enough about not intervening, because of her long-standing friendship with her former mentor.
In his report, Mr. Hamilton described Ms. Sturgeon’s failure to mention the previous meeting as regrettable and something that would be received with suspicion, even skepticism, by some.
However, he added, “I find it difficult to think of any convincing reason why, if she had actually remembered the meeting, she would have deliberately concealed it, revealing all the conversations she had with Mr. Salmond.”
Mr. Hamilton is a former public prosecutor in Ireland and an independent consultant to the Scottish government in his ministerial code. Parts of his report were drafted, however, sparking complaints from Sturgeon’s critics.
The parliamentary committee’s report on the same event is expected to be more critical of Sturgeon, but since its conclusions are likely to be seen as more influenced by policy, they are unlikely to seriously harm it.
The committee’s report is scheduled to be published on Tuesday, but, according to leaks, opinion among its members appears to have split along the lines of the party, leaning against Sturgeon by one vote. Last week, she called it a party attack.