Nicola Sturgeon’s message to Keir Starmer - Stop making Nigel Farage the next PM

This is a Global Player original podcast. There are real big issues and problems. in the UK right now and there's a need to recognise those problems. Nigel Farage is tapping into that sense of pain and suffering and cost of living crisis, state of public services that people are feeling right now. But if you Keir Starmer

Yeah, whatever you people think about right levels of immigration or whether it's too high or too low or whatever, immigration is not the root cause of the issues that the UK is grappling with right now. Brexit is more of a root cause of them than than immigration is. But if you're Keir Starmer and you're effectively saying, Yeah, Nigel Farage is right, it's immigration so I'm just going to try to be better at dealing with it than than he is, I just think that is

So misguided. He's legitimizing Nigel Farage's central argument. And if you legitimise your opponent's central argument, then don't be surprised if people vote for your opponent.

That is Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's former First Minister, with advice for Keir Starmer in government. telling him there is no point trying to sound like reform, ape the words, the feeling, the rhetoric of Nigel Farage. Otherwise, people might as well just vote reform. She's spoken to me at length about her time in government, the mistake she made, and her relationship, awkward as that was, with Alex Salmond. Welcome to the newsagents.

The news agents. A lot of politicians begin their speeches or their sentences or their conversations with the words, let's be honest, and then they actually aren't. this book is surprisingly candid. Mm-hmm. It's raw, it's unflinching. You discuss everything from the impact Margaret Thatcher had on you, your relationship with Alex Salmond, how it broke down.

your electoral failures in governed before your successes, your miscarriage You talk about the trans right. Issues, gender definitions and what you got right and wrong there and I think you even describe false rumours around a blowjob at one stage. I mean reading between Right I think I've got a go nose. And you end by talking about the police investigation that overshadowed so much of the last years. Nicholas Surgeon will come on to all of that, but it is

Definitely Frank. And the place I want to start is I think one that will chime with a lot of women, which is that sense of image, of having to define your own image as a political neophyte. And you describe yourself as sort of mimicking those around you, mainly middle aged men. And you say as a result I developed a very serious and austere persona, dark plain clothes, portrayed as doa, frumpy and unattractive. I came across as a

personality free zone. It's weird to recognise that that's what was happening to you. Yeah, I mean it was it wasn't conscious at the time. It's only looking back on it that I I recognise that. And I I think it will be the experience of lots of women

in lots of walks of life, but public facing roles probably in particular, and If you're surrounded by men as a young woman, there's a confidence issue, regardless of how naturally confident or otherwise you are, and I wasn't a particularly confident young person. I think you try to, or at least I tried to overcome that by, what I say in the book, fitting in with my surroundings, mimicking. the dress style, the behaviour, the mannerisms, the way of speaking of of the men I was surrounded by and

And you kinda it took me a long time. I I was probably into my thirties before I really properly understood that. That didn't get me any plaudits by the men around me. Instead I was described in the way that you've just read out in the book.

But then the thing you you then realise is if you decide to go the other way and be really feminine and individualist, that's when you are described as not serious, frivolous. And so there's this sense that it's really hard to win as a woman because whatever you do in terms of how you present yourself, you're

You're criticised for it. And I guess where I got to, but it took me a long, long time to get there, was just try to find a way of being comfortable in my own skin, be my my own person, not try to be something I wasn't. And it's the advice I I will give to young women who ask me these days, you know, w how do you cope with the very gender distress you know, criticism that women get it's y you've just got to find a way of

of being comfortable in your own skin. It's not an easy thing to achieve though. It takes up a lot of headspace. I mean just listening to you describing that, you know, you're kind of I'm I can't fall onto that side and I can't fall onto that side and I've got to

be myself. But I think as you say, when you're studying out in politics, you don't really you don't know who that person is, right? And I was really young and I don't regret the career path I took at all. I've had an extraordinary career in politics.

But if I look back on it, I probably was a bit too young to get sort of thrust so much into the the limelight. I hadn't really worked out who I was and therefore I started to mould myself into something that I probably w wasn't in terms of of image. But you know, right through My career, and I think women experience this day in and day out because, and this is a sort of additional aspect of this, there is so much focus.

on women in the public eye about what we wear and how we look and hair and tone of voice that inevitably it takes up a lot of headspace that guys just don't have to think about. You know, the the sort of famous quip of Obama that, you know, he liked to reduce the unnecessary decisions he had to take. every day so he would wear the same colour of suit and tie every day. But as a woman you just can't And Hillary Clinton didn't. And Hillary, you know, had to spend I mean I think she wants

totied up the hours that she spent on a campaign just getting her hair and makeup done. So there's these things that just come with the territory, but they Mae'n gwneud yn unrhyw bethau. Mae'n gwneud yn unrhyw bethau, yn unrhyw bethau, yn unrhyw bethau, yn unrhyw bethau, yn unrhyw bethau.

You know, it goes deeper than that. I think we still live in a a society where, you know, certain characteristics in in men are seen as as attributes. If a man is very decisive as a leader, that's good, strong leadership. if a woman is is that way then they are they're bossy or aggressive or not a team player. So is it is it better now than when I was starting out? In some ways, yes. But I I think

We've still got a long way to go before any of that really changes. You were very nervous as being seen as Alex Salmon's girl. I mean that's your phrase that He basically picked you out, plucked you out and said, Yeah, she's the next big thing. She's gonna be my deputy. And you kind of had to go along for the ride, and yet you're you sort of feel like on every page in the early bit you're you're struggling to find your legitimacy, your mandate, right? So I mean the the legitimacy and mandate bit

came a bit later. You know, I when I was first minister initially, you know, I I took over when he resigned and I I did have this Um what's the right word to use? Obsession about. So it was time I put myself forward as the first minister, you know, candidate for first minister. And I I really needed for my own sense of legitimacy to get that mandate in my own right. Nobody else

thought I was, you know, lacked legitimacy s as first minister, but I did. Going way, way back, you know, Alec really sort of started to push me forward when I was, you know, late teens. about twenty, you know, I was twenty when he phoned me up and asked me to stand in the the general election in nineteen ninety two and and You know, that was good in lots of ways. He pushed me beyond where my own confidence would have allowed me to go at that time. Um he saw something in me that I didn't

Really believe in myself. So that was good. And he did it, you know, he wasn't just being altruistic around me, he knew he had to develop. strength and depth in the SNP so there was a a bit of that at play as well. But I guess that

that sense that he was always pushing me beyond where I mean it's it's for other people to say whether he pushed me beyond where my talents would have taken me, but he certainly pushed me beyond where my own confidence would have taken me. And maybe that developed you know, a sort of sense that lasted right up until just before our our relationship broke down really, of a sense of

even if I told myself it wasn't the case of still always kinda needing his approval for things. It was such a complicated relationship, that one. And you you write, I mean you've got a whole chapter on Alex Sam, and you you say it was harder to write than you'd ever imagined. Because your friendship was destroyed and then he died.

But there are so many instances in the book, Nicola Way. He sounds really toxic, to be quite honest. I mean, long before you get onto the sexual uh misconduct allegations He sounds quite a bully. He sounds quite manipulative and I wonder whether you've I mean that's how you describe him. One of the really difficult things about trying to write my relationship with Alec was well, you know, he was dead by the time the book was published and b well by the time it was going to print.

And I I agonised over the inclusion or excision of the the chapter about him and and I decided to keep it in because well to the moment he died he was accusing me of being part of a a conspiracy. I needed to put I was gonna say my side, the facts of of the matter in the book. But because our relationship had broken down, the other really difficult thing about writing

about the relationship was it would have been so easy and very tempting to kinda rewrite history and and to say he was always this malign influence in my life and and that's that's not true. He was And this is where yes, it is complex. He for much of my life was a positive influence. He achieved more than I might have done if he hadn't bolstered my confidence. But

Yeah, it was it was complicated. He was he did have bullying tendencies. He didn't bully me, certainly not in a a way that I would describe as overt, but he was a But even you describe at your own wedding, that he kind of arrived late, left early, was just a bit miffed that you hadn't asked him to make the speech. There was a sense of like having to be the

The bride at the wedding, as they say. Yeah, I mean there was elements of that. But but but but but we for l you know, long, long periods of my life we had a good relationship, we achieved amazing things together and maybe Maybe I mean, he's unfortunately no longer here. And maybe I just need for my own sake not to have that all kinda tainted because we did achieve extraordinary things together and if

if now I you know was to try to say well it was you know he was terrible at every single stage, I don't actually think that would be fair to him, but it also wouldn't be fair to me, because it would sort of undermine the things that we did together and achieved together. So

You're absolutely right to describe it as complex. I I sometimes think even having written about it in the book, I sometimes think I will for the rest of my life be a bit of my brain trying to process That relationship I when we fell out. I I never feel that is quite the right way to describe it.

accuse you of a conspiracy against him. That's how people describe it and it often irritates me when because it's almost as like we had a political disagreement or something and it it wasn't that. He was

Mae'n rhaid wedi'i'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i wedi'i

He he basically gave me a a description of one of the things that in my mind was an admission of deeply inappropriate behaviour. He would have described it as as not an admission as, you know, he was it was all a misunderstanding. But he was accused of something. He definitely wanted me to help make it go away. I wouldn't do that.

And instead of just he was acquitted of every criminal charge that he was tried for, so I think it's always important to say that. But in the course of his trial, in the course of what he said to me, There is no doubt in my mind he behaved towards women at times that was deeply inappropriate, and instead of I guess reflecting on that, looking at himself in the mirror trying to

you know, be a better man in future, he had to turn it into something in which he was the victim of a conspiracy. So he accused me of of orchestrating this conspiracy against him that is so ludicrous

You know, why would I have done that? How would I have done that? It would have involved but it is it is not true. And but that's what he accused me of. So when I hear it described as we fell out, it just something somehow feels just an in inadequate description of what happened, but when it did happen, I went through

I I've described it in the book'cause it is the best description I can think of. It was like a grieving process. I used to have vivid dreams about'em and everything would be fine and I'd wake up and that kind of way you wake up from a dream and it's takes you a few seconds to remember it's not real.

And then went through that again when he died, even though after everything that had happened, felt, you know, was hit by this wave of loss when he died. So Because your fortunes and your political careers have been so entwined. I I wonder when you think about the twenty fourteen the independence referendum that you fought together. I mean, does a bit of you wonder whether he set the cause back? I mean do you think If you had been leader of

For that referendum. Would you have got independence over the line? I don't know. I I d There's part of me would love to think that and sit here and say yes but yeah I I think I I don't know. I really don't and I don't think I would sit here and and claim that. I talk in the book about the times I was frustrated with him during that campaign when I he didn't appear to

He didn't get the detail, he didn't apply himself in the way that I know he he was capable of. At other points he was absolutely brilliant. I I still to this day I I chop and change my mind about whether if only we'd done a bit better we could have got it over the line.

versus actually given where we started, maybe where we got it was as far in that moment in time that we could have have got it. He definitely in the course of that campaign, I think could have done th things better and Do you have a tendency? We had some yeah, we had conversations you know, I was I talk about the th the process of producing the white paper on independence when we had a very strained period in our relationship when he just wouldn't engage with it, decided to

Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny. Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny. Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny. Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny. Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny. Exchanges around that time. Um I mean did he ever blame you? Did you ever No, um he never blamed me for yeah, no. No he didn't. I want to go on to some of the stuff that happened later in the last few years. The question of gender self ID.

This was a a big moment in the Scottish Parliament. It essentially ended up being blocked by Rishi Sunak. And you again super frank in this chapter, you say I failed to engage substantively enough. With the concern that making it easier to legally change gender also made it easier for dangerous men to access women only spaces.

Why do you think you failed to engage substantially enough? Um So I I try to sort of give a sort of rationale for that in the book and and I think it is rooted in when we embarked on this proposed change, it was back in twenty sixteen. Rightly or wrongly, it it wasn't controversial at the time. There was uh a a leaders' hustings that happened in in twenty sixteen where the leaders of all of the main party said, Yeah, we're gonna do this.

it wasn't something Scotland was doing as a groundbreaking experiment. This legislation was on the statute book already in the Republic of Ireland and many other countries. So I think I I didn't See it as the great big controversial thing that it it later became. And I think that's probably why I was slow to recognise that there were. concerns there that even if I thought they were unfounded and and could be answered, I didn't properly

engage sufficiently in the Did you just hear bigotry rather than concern? So I I didn't just hear bigotry but I think there was also at the point and I I say in the book I mean I don't I haven't changed my view on this issue and I I will argue my corner and argue my case on this view but When I realised it had become as divisive and polarized as it had, I should have paused and seen if we could find a different way of achieving the same outcome.

I think at that point one of the reasons have been different if you essentially that's one of the reasons I didn't is I didn't know that it would make any difference. When I say achieving the same outcome, what I mean is A world in which I've fought for women's rights all my life and will will continue to do so. A world in which women's rights are not just protected but enhanced and, you know, we fend off some of the real threats to women's rights that are all around us right now.

And trans people get to live with respect and dignity i in a way that they often haven't. And trans people have always existed. That's what I mean by, you know, the same outcome. Could we have come at that differently?

And I think in that moment I I doubted whether a pause would deliver that. And maybe that's the point coming back to your question, that I I thought there was And yeah, I remember your colleague Lewis interviewing me when I was still first minister about this and I said something then that has I think

being misrepresented went because it's taken as me saying everybody who has a different view on me on this is transphobic and racist and misogynist. I wasn't saying that. I don't think most people are.

But I do think this whole debate has been kinda hijacked and weaponised by some people who very definitely are. And maybe I just thought there was too much of that in the debate for any attempt to make a difference. So I that's my I mean isn't isn't the truth that m most people sit in the vast majority of people

sit in the middle of kind of trying to muddle through and trying to make sense of something with with the most humanity they can. But there are extremes on both sides. I I think that's I I think that's the point I was trying to make. And there are extremes on the other side as well. That's what I'm saying. Absolutely but So the thing is

I think it is undeniable that on and yes it is on both sides, but let me just talk about the side I was talking about in the interview that I I referenced there. I think it's undeniable that this whole debate has been picked up and you know, co opted into the wider sort of culture war, battle against wokeism, all all of that. And that and that there are some people who see

push back against trans rights as the kind of entry to push back against other rights as well. And I I think that is undeniable. And so I'm trying to think that J K. Rowling has been corrupted. I I I don't have any animus towards J K. Rowling. I don't think that's same the same in reverse but

I am not accusing her of anything. I do think right and I don't doubt the sincerity with which she holds her views. If I have a an issue with how JK Rowling goes about this debate, it's there does seem at times to be a

or it seems to me an attempt to sort of just be gratuitously, you know, cruel to to to trans people sometimes. And I d I don't think that is I don't think that's warranted. I think if we all could take a step back from that and and try to say what I didn't do a few years ago is look mo because you're right, most people

want women's rights to be protected and want trans rights to be protected. So instead w the the whole climate around this right now is awful for trans people. I mean it's really difficult for trans people to to live in any kind of sense a piece of dignity right now. And I don't believe the majority of people want that to be the case. So can we get back to some kind of how do we

how do we find a way of depolarising this and and achieving both these things? Because the one thing I really, really believe really strongly, and I'm not going to Mae'n gwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud

So that's a t shirt. I mean let me just ask you about the t shirt, because this is J.K. Rowling putting a t shirt on which called you a destroyer of women's rights. I don't know if you saw that. I don't know how did that make you feel? I

That for me is she disagrees with me vehemently on this issue, and that's her right. I I don't have any animus towards her because of that, but I don't it it just seemed to me that when you go there and I was the first minister, of course I should have got really robust scrutiny and and and push back to things I was doing, but that just seemed to me

a move that was about increasing the temperature and and raising the sort of toxicity around the debate and and personalising it to a degree that that was not likely to to help find any common ground. Now she would say, and you know, I'm not going to try and put words into her mouth, but no doubt she would say, I wasn't trying to find common ground and maybe there's a bit of truth in in that too.

Well she she might say I mean I guess the flip side is she thought the temperature was raised. Yeah. And that the margin lies in her mind would be the women. Let me just put the Irvin Walsh thought to you. He comes at it from a different place, but he says he basically accused you of forcing the trans issue down people's throats

and pushing them into the arms of the likes of Tommy Robinson, Andrew Tate, etc., pushing back the cause of independence. He says something that should have been a fringe issue was allowed to leak into the whole independence debate.

I I mean I I just I don't accept that characterisation. I you know, comes did it get too big, I suppose is the question. Yeah, I think it did. But was that and I take my share of the responsibility for that, but was that entirely down To me, this was not an issue that I spent all that much time on.

When it as I said earlier on, it wasn't something that I unilaterally decided to do and to push down people's throats. This was something that all parties in twenty sixteen Scottish election all parties had some all of them used different formulations and different wording but everyone had a commitment on this

uh in their manifestos. So it wasn't some obsession I had that I and and that's where I I I and it then yeah, it got it got too big. But you know, it is what it is and I I don't know, it sounds it seem feels to me sometimes as if people will just you know, they're desperate for me to say, I'm I was wrong, I

I changed my mind, I admit that on this issue and I I will as I've tried to do, I will analyse and process and try to reflect on the things I could have done differently and better. But I'm not going to I I didn't come into politics to And I just

To make my own life a little bit easier, just to, you know, dump all over a a stigmatised minority. I will always stand up for trans rights. I will always stand up for women's rights and, you know, while I've got breadth in my body I'll argue that these two things

are not in the tension that some people think they are. So if you were in power now Thank goodness I'm not I know. Well I'm sure I'm sure it's for all sorts of reasons. But but talk me through the the Supreme Court ruling. I mean how would you interpret that? Like what would what would be happening in Scotland now? Well I mean the government is reviewing right now how to give effect to the Supreme Court rule. The Supreme Court ruling is the Supreme Court ruling and

For me it comes back to something I said earlier. I I wouldn't be arguing against what the highest court in the land said. I believe in the rule of law and the Supreme Court, you know, adjudicates on what the law is and that's what it's done.

I mean Isla Bryson and I'm I know you'll call this a gotcha question and it's and it's not a gotcha question, it's just a sort of simplification question. Isla Bryson, who is the convicted rapist, you would call a man not a woman, right? Yeah, well the the reason I apart from just my communication skills deserted me back in the day when that came. Isla Bryson was in a woman's prison, I think for a day.

yn ymwneud â'r hyn sy'n ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r hyn. I hesitate to get pulled down the talk about what tra and who Isla Bryson is, is because I know that anything I say on Isla Bryson doesn't stay with Isla Bryson. I I don't care about Isla Bryson's feelings one IO.

Isla Bryson is a rapist, but I know that anything I say about Isla Bryson immediately gets transferred onto the whole trans community, and I'm just It go comes back to this thing. You know, that might make my life easier. It might make it easier to get through an interview, but I'm not going to be part of this kind of pile on

from some quarters on a a stigmatised and vulnerable community. Um so on your question about the Supreme Court, that is the Supreme Court's opinion on what the law of the land is.

If the implementation of that does mean, and I I don't think it should or has to, but if it ends up meaning that trans people can't live their lives without basic dignity and respect, then, you know, the job of politicians in parliaments is to decide how to deal with that and and how to make sure the law allows trans people to live with dignity and respect while also protecting the rights of women. I watched your resignation speech. Was it the fifteenth of February? Yeah.

I mean we're all transfixed. 'Cause no one saw that. Except everybody had been predicting it and then everybody's in Scotland I mean there had been so much oh she's gonna quit soon, she's gonna quit, she's off to do something. And then you said you you weren't. I mean you made that very clear and you said no, I'm not gonna go uh you know, plenty of gas left in the tank. And you talked about you said you'd been doing this for nonstop for twenty five, thirty years, you wanted time to

Go and have coffees with your niece and nephews, I seem to remember. I think they had different ideas by the way. And that's what you said in the speech. You said if if they if they're still around for me. You wanted a normal life. What was the thing that just the bolt that suddenly made you go, I wanna I mean was it the was it the gender debate? Or was it the length of time you've been in? Or was it I mean you were asked about the

The police investigation and the S and P finances and everyone it won't. Given what happened eight days later, I If I'd been watching that I would have said, Well there's the reason. But it wasn't. It absolutely wasn't. I had no swe I swear that it wasn't. There was a month between me announcing my resignation and actually stepping down. And anybody who was around me in that time says I was happier, more relaxed.

Looking forward. If I had any inkling of what was coming down the track at me I would have been unable to function. So you knew the m the money was missing from the coffers, didn't you, at that point? Um I I think I I think I need to be careful given the live proceedings of how I characterise this. I knew the investig I was if anything I was more irritated at that point than worried about why it was taking so long. But I didn't know what was coming down the track. I absolutely didn't.

So the gender recognition debate wasn't that other than I felt that was an example of one of the things I was starting to feel that I had was had become a polarising figure and you know, people would come at issues of substance through a prism of whether they liked me or not rather than look at it on its merit. But fundamentally it was COVID. I was and it took me a while to realise this. I was utterly exhausted after COVID, mentally, physically. I'd lost

A bit of my appetite for the cut and thrust of politics. I just So you were part of the workforce that didn't want to go back to work after COVID? I I went back to work after COVID. I won an election after or during COVID. But do you know it was There was something obviously working away in my subconscious and then just suddenly it burst into the front of mind and I did an interview at the start of that year.

with Laura Kunzberg and it was just after Jacinda Dern had announced her resignation. Yeah, Jacinda was that was it a sort of contagion? It it wasn't a contagion, but it was maybe it maybe was what helped bring it from the subconscious to front of mind because When Laura asked me the question,'cause she used the Jacinda phrase, have you still got you know plenty of guests? And I was like, Of course I do.

But do you know what? I I thought about that after that interview and I suddenly it just suddenly dawned in me that I r I remember getting up that morning and reading or seeing on television that Jacinda had said she was resigning and when I started to think back just a few days later to that I suddenly realised that my primary emotion at that moment of hearing her make that speech was envy. I thought I wish that was me.

I think that was the moment that it went from just somewhere deep in my subconscious to, No, actually this is time for me to go. So you imagine this lovely bucolic time when you're gonna be left alone to have coffee with your niece and nephews and then eight days later the police investigation starts and before we know it there is a blue tent erected in your garden that looks like a murder scene. Do you think the police overreact it?

I do know what I want to say no. And I'm gonna say no because if I if I ever thought that that was the case then it it would raise such fundamental, you know, issues in my head about the operation of justice in my country and I don't want that to be the case. I so I I'm gonna I I don't know. It was a very and I I'm also you we know there are proceedings still live, so I I am going to be and I have to be careful what I say. it was a pretty brutal thing to happen. But I've got to trust that

that's what they thought was necessary and they did that for good reasons. Do you think the tent was performative? I mean was there a reason why you need to have a blue tent in the back? I think the if i if the police were a answering this I think what they would say was I mean in this

sounds sounds a bit bizarre but but equally I can see w why they would say it, that it was about privacy, it was about trying to, you know, do whatever they were doing in the house without people seeing it firsthand. All I can say is it was a pretty brutal thing to go through. We'll hear more from Nicola Sturgeon in just a moment. Journalists. Good morning. I'm Nick Ferrari. James O'Brien on LBC. Good afternoon. I'm Sheila Fogerty. Leading Britain's conversation.

The news agents. I want to just turn to where we are today. I mean politics seems to have moved very fast and very far away from where you left it. I want to look at Keir Starmer and His direction of travel was the his language, you know, he used this odd phrase, the island of strangers, didn't he? And then he rode back from that and said he deeply regretted it.

And this week we've seen a shake up at the Home Office, immigration's now and Labour's top three priorities. Do you get the strategy? I I I get it. I I I think it's deeply misguided. You know, there are real big issues and problems in the UK right now and, you know, Scotland is part of that and I you know, was responsible for some of this when I was first minister but There's a need to recognise those problems. Nigel Farage is tapping into that sense of uh

pain and suffering and, you know, cost of living crisis, state of public services that people are feeling right now. But if you're Keir Starmer and you basically You know, whatever you people think about right levels of immigration or whether it's too high or too low or whatever, immigration is not the root cause of the issues that the UK is grappling with right now. Brexit is more of a root cause of them than than immigration is.

But if you're Keir Starmer and you're effectively saying, Yeah, Nigel Farage is right, it's immigration so I'm just going to try to be better at dealing with it than than he is, I just think that is so misguided. If if you basically say Nigel Farage is right then people are likely to vote for Nigel Farage, not you because they look at you and think, well, you haven't managed to do anything about it. So far if people are saying what if Keirstomer is hearing people say this matters to me?

Yes, asylum matters to me. People are hearing every day, all over the media it's not a criticism of the media, that the problem in this country is immigration. So of course people are starting to say the problem in this country is immigration because they're not hearing. I'm proud to say I think they do hear more of this in Scotland, but they're not hearing politicians say hold on a wee second

Immigration yes, there are debates to be had about the immigration system and levels of immigration. I'm not saying we should shut that down. But the reason you know, living standards are falling in the UK, the reason public services are in so much difficulty, the reason communities are suffering the way they are is not down to immigration. You know, why has ironically irregular illegal immigration gone up since Brexit because Brexit took us out of the Dublin Convention. Brexit has done

so much and it's not solely Brexit but largely that. But people are not hearing the counter argument. They're hearing you don't think any politician in Westminster is saying that? I I don't hear it. I mean I'm not saying n none are, but Keir Starmer's not. He's not saying like okay

Yes, we've got to make sure we've got a functioning immigration and asylum system. Yes, we've got to convince people that the levels of immigration are are appropriate. But here's why immigration actually is good for our country, here's what it's done for the country, here's why we need it. And here's the what the real issues are that we need to grapple with and here are what the actual solutions are. And he's not doing that. He's he's legitimizing

Nigel Farage's central argument. And if you legitimise your opponent's central argument, then don't be surprised if people vote for your opponent. You boasted that UKIP never really had a firm footing in Scotland. But reform are now neck and neck um with Labour at least in Scotland. Do you see that? Okay, so what's what's changing? What has changed there? Um

I think it's the same as what I've just described. Uh across the UK. People are people are suffering, people are, you know, struggling, people are disillusioned and they're not And and reform are doing better in Scotland. The fact that they're doing relatively less well in Scotland than in the rest of the year. They're doing massively well compared to Totally, yeah. Where that possible is but the the fact that they're not in the you know in the

UK wide they're in the lead in the polls or in England they're in the lead in the polls, they're not in the lead in the polls in Scotland because i you know, the SNP is still making the kind of arguments uh about the real issues and and how we tackle those issues in a way that Labour is not doing in my view.

in England, but there needs to be across the board more of that of taking on the the the core arguments that Farage is is putting forward. It sits people like Farage to make people think that the the the struggles they're having, rather than being down to the kind of yawning gap between the richest and the poorest in this country and, you know, Nigel Farage is, you know, perhaps part of the minority there. It suits him to make people think it's the immigrant, it's the gay person.

if you're a young working class man who's struggling it's because women's rights have gone too You're saying he's homophobic as well. I'm not saying he's homophobic. I I d I I I don't know whether he's homophobic. I'm certainly not going to sit here and defend him uh but What I'm saying is it suits him to have people looking in another direction. And that's it's the play book of Trump, it's the play book of of these people.

So why is reform doing as well as it is? Because they are they are tapping into a very real problem. You we won't beat reform by just saying, Well, they're bad people and people who vote for them are bad people. The problems that are allowing Farage to to make the progress he's making right now are real but politicians of the the progressive left, if I can call it that, have to come up with the the solutions

that are going to make a difference to people's lives that actually persuade people, offer them a bit of hope and aspiration and belief that things can get better. And that won't happen, whether it's in America with Trump or here with Farage by effectively cosying up to them and saying, Well, actually

they're kinda right and we'll just try to to do their brand of politics a bit better. We've got Trump's state visit next week. You've written the progressive liberals seem paralyzed or worse craven. The Donald Trumps of this world won't be defeated by flattery and imitation. People must be offered an alternative to the snake or they pedal. On all of this I'm unlikely to stay quiet for long. So who are you talking about?

I I th I think Starmer in the way you know, I I get on the international stage with Ukraine and it there's a there's a really delicate balance to strike with Trump. You've got to try and persuade him to do the right thing. But what I've just been talking about here in the UK with with Farage in the immigration debate, w you you won't beat Farage by saying effectively he's right.

you have to offer the alternative. Not by saying that the problems people are are struggling with are not real, but by offering a better set of solutions. And and I I think unless we get back to A spirited defence of of liberal democracy, of of progressive politics, of in my view, you know, solid left to centre politics that make a difference to people's lives and do that confidently, even if it feels difficult, then the populist

which often seems like too friendly a term for them, are going to continue to make make the running. And I you know, if if there was a general election in the UK tomorrow I think Farage would emerge from it as Prime Minister. And that's, in my view, the really bad news. The really good news is that the general election's not tomorrow. So there's time to try to

turn that tide back but it won't happen unless people actually make the the argument and make the case. He's basically it looks like he's basically making the case for putting Shabanamud in the home office.

to fight Farage on the issues that Farage is trying to fight the election. Is that gonna win for him? It comes back to what I've said. If if it We are tougher on immigration than you, therefore accepting Farage's central premise that all of the problems that the UK is currently suffering, and there are lots of them, all stem from immigration, then no it won't win because

If if you're somebody who thinks, because that's what you're being told, that immigration is the problem, you're going to vote for the guy who's always talked about, you know, needing to tackle that, not the Johnny Come Latelies who are now saying

you know, seemingly for electoral reasons, oh no, we will be serious about it as well. If what it means is somebody's gonna say, Look, okay, we need to make sure the immigration and asylum system is working, we need to make sure that the levels of immigration are

the right levels for the country. We need to make sure that we're doing more to tackle some of the root causes of of migration and asylum and people get desperately getting into these boats to try to find a better life here. But, you know, actually we're also going to stand up for

the good that immigration does for the the doctors that work in our NHS, for the the nurses that work in our our care homes, for the people who are doing essential jobs all over our country, for the greater diversity that, you know, has come to cities like this one and and different parts of the UK, so we're not going to kinda collude in this notion that immigration is a really bad thing that we've got to to stop. Then yeah, maybe maybe if somebody starts making that argument really vigorously

Nicholas Sturgeon, thank you. Thank you. The news agents. Before we go, we've had a question from a listener, Graeme Carr in Newcastle, who has asked us, dear news agents. Is John Sopel set to become the new ambassador in Washington? Well I have to say, Graham, that he has now been absent for a week and nothing would surprise me. John seems very at home, not just in Washington, but in that embassy. So let's all keep our fingers crossed. Bye fore. This is a Global Player original podcast.