Nicola Sturgeon： The Interview ｜ ITV News

For over a decade, she was the most powerful woman in Scotland. A working-class girl from Ayrshire who became the driving force for independence. It was a dream she fought for tooth and nail, dealt a crushing blow when her country voted no. But in the moment of defeat, she made history, becoming leader of the SNP and Scotland's first female first minister. To become the leader of the party that I joined as a teenager is the biggest privilege of my life. Her time in power was turbulent. She tried twice more for another independence vote. She led Scotland through a global pandemic, a burden she says she bore heavily. I wanted to be the best first minister I could be during that period. It's for others to judge the extent to which I succeeded. Her dream team partnership for independence with Alex Salmond fell apart in devastating fashion. Her mentor was to be charged and later acquitted of multiple sexual assault allegations. Sturgeon would be dragged into the scandal, accused of conspiring against him. Then came the storm over gender recognition reform, a toxic debate which shook her grip of the party and fuelled rage against her position. Are all trans women women? That's not the point that we're dealing with yet. That's the question I'm asking. Trans women are women. In 2023, she stepped down as first minister, saying it was time for a new chapter. But just eight days later, the police were at her door. Their investigation into SNP finances engulfing her home. She would be cleared, but her husband Peter Murrell, the SNP chief executive, was charged with embezzling party funds. From the heights of leading a nation to fighting for her reputation, now Nicola Sturgeon wants to tell her story in her own words. As she prepares to launch her autobiography, we visit Dunure in Ayrshire, her favourite childhood spot, and sit down with her to talk leadership, legacy and loss, and what comes next. You talk about the book as being a lifeline, writing it, and therapy. I mean, what was that therapy for? It's a strong word to use. I mean, obviously, the last two years of my life have been torrid. You know, finding myself at the centre of a police investigation under suspicion for a couple of years, all the while knowing I had done nothing wrong. The whole no smoke without fire is a really basic human instinct. We all have it if somebody's accused of something that we might think, well, that's maybe not true. But there's always a little part of your brain saying, well, no smoke without fire. So I was just, yeah, just totally shaken to my core. It was really, really dark and really, really difficult. If you'd described it to me in advance, I would have said I won't survive that. Nicola Sturgeon, by the time you stood down as leader, there was already a well-reported and growing scandal, and not least a police investigation around the finances of the SNP. Did you genuinely have no idea that at some point there was going to be a knock on the door? Absolutely had no idea. I mean, I know people, I totally understand that people will look at the chronology of events now and think she's not serious. But but genuinely, that is the case. And obviously, I knew there was an investigation underway. But what transpired in that morning in April was, you know, utterly shocking, utterly traumatic and utterly unexpected. I was eight days, I think, out of being first minister. So I was in bed, I was asleep. And I was vaguely aware of Peter going downstairs. I think I was vaguely aware that the doorbell had rung or something. I can't remember that properly. And then literally the next thing I knew, I was up and the police were in my house. And and he was being arrested and they had a search warrant. What was it like when you saw Peter being led away? I don't really have a clear memory of that, because I think I'd gone upstairs to kind of get myself ready. And and so I don't really. But the idea of him being taken out of your family home. So I don't know and I genuinely don't know whether the fact that I don't have a clear image of that in my head is because I didn't witness it or that I have kind of somehow blocked out. It wasn't until I got to my mom and dad that I saw the pictures of my house looking like a murder scene, effectively. And yeah, it was just so I'm not I'm not really I'm just working out that it's really hard to articulate how I felt that day. And it's obviously affected you pretty deeply. I had this sense of horror and upset and, you know, the kind of shame of it all. There was another clear punctuation point. He described Sunday, June the 11th, worst day of your life. You're arrested. You have to attend a police station. You're there for hours to go from first minister, this lauded female politician to walking into a police station for questioning. How was that? Horrific. I think I just part of me just closed down. What did the police want to know? I can't go into that right now. It's very difficult. I just can't. And I don't think you could hear it, even if I did, because these proceedings are still live. So I can't go into the detail of that. Do you stand by that you knew nothing? There are people out there who, whatever you say, find it really hard to believe that here was the party leader, the party chief exec, married for years. They just can't believe that. So the police themselves said they had, you know, robustly, exhaustively, I can't remember the term they used, looked at all the evidence. If there had been any evidence that I had done anything that constituted a criminal offence, I wouldn't be sitting here right now having been cleared by the police. How is Peter? He is obviously going through something that is horrendously difficult for anybody, and he'll, you know, he's coping with it and getting through it. How is he coping? I don't know, we were separated. It actually wouldn't be fair, because I don't know the answer to that question in the way that I might once have done. Did you think there was an issue? There was sometimes a sense that as a couple, you were sort of invincible and untouchable. Alex Salmond said you should never have had that situation. I've spent most of my life and most of my career thinking I'm not good enough, I have to do more to prove myself. So this idea that I ever, either in the context of my marriage or my individual career, ever thought I'm unbeatable, I'm invincible, I don't think I've had a nanosecond in my life of thinking that. Let's rewind then to the independence referendum of 2014. So 2011, with Alex Salmond at the helm, SNP gets a clear majority. David Cameron then grants you that independence referendum. You admit the SNP was no way near ready for it. We weren't. We were, I think, caught a bit off guard. We hadn't done, to be candid, enough of the substantive heavy lifting work that we then did in advance of the vote in 2014. You said we had rudimentary top-line answers, but on very few big issues, arguably none, did we have positions that would withstand the full glare of scrutiny in a referendum campaign. And that we went from, what had been the case, we supported independence, we argued for it in a very big picture way, the other side said it was a terrible idea. But as soon as it became clear that there was actually going to be a referendum, the scrutiny went up several gears and that's what we weren't ready for in that moment. That all coalesced around the white paper that was published ahead of the referendum, which you were overseeing. This nearly drove you mad, didn't it? I remember an evening which I just suddenly had this overwhelming sense of impossibility. I can't get this. To the point it needs to be at. It's so unwieldy, it's so difficult. And I just remember having what I can only describe as a panic attack. I was sobbing on the floor of my office at home and just my heart was racing. And it was at this point that Alex Salmond was really showing very little interest in the white paper. He really didn't engage in the work of the drafting or the compilation of the white paper at all. He was the leader, he was first minister and he hadn't read it. And he hadn't read it, this crucial run-up. He hadn't read it, he'd maybe read bits. I don't even know if he'd read bits of it. I knew I was going to have to sit him down and say, well, you're going to have to read this and you're going to have to tell me now if there are bits you want to change because it has to be signed off. He told me he was going on a trade mission to China. I don't think I'd ever felt as much cold fury as I did in that moment. It just seemed to me like an abdication of responsibility. You talk about your first attempt to get another referendum in 2017. And you write, if it's possible for a decision to be both absolutely right and catastrophically wrong, that's what this was. And the truth of it was that it was in the middle of political chaos. You misread Scotland. I think in principle, it was the right decision. Scotland had been put in this position that was democratically wrong, that it was going to lose EU membership against its wishes. I think because there was lots of people that were contacting me who'd voted no in 2014 who were now suddenly reconsidering the issue of independence. I equated that too much with a kind of readiness and an eagerness to actually make that decision. But I still believe in that period around 2017 to 2019, Scotland should have had a choice. And I didn't manage to give Scotland that choice. And I made misjudgments along the way in terms of timing and the emphasis in what I was trying to do. You've lived this extraordinary political life with these astonishing electoral successes. 10 years as first minister, 18 years with the SNP. Isn't the truth that the electoral success might have been there, but the success in governance and delivering what really matters day-to-day in people's lives, like the NHS, it simply has not delivered? In 2020, of course, we did have a global pandemic. Looking back on my time in office, and it's not meant to absolve me of my own failings, but my biggest frustration is that lack of any period where I just had a straight run. You could have had a straight run. You kept wanting to have a second independence referendum. That's fair comment, but that doesn't actually negate my point. You could have been concentrating on those issues. That is a fair point, but it doesn't negate the point I'm making. My desire to have another independence referendum, if that hadn't been there, I'd still have had to fight these eight elections. Two of them were snap UK general elections. One of them was a European election that was never meant to happen. I can only talk about the things I'm proud of and the things that I believe will stand the test of time. The Scottish child payment, which is, as we speak, lifting tens of thousands of kids out of poverty. Do I wish I had done more? Of course I do. And I try to be frank about that, but I am proud of the things that I did achieve. You don't have a scenario where a country which voted against Brexit, as you outlined earlier, is now witnessing the rise in support of Nigel Farage's party. You are pretty scathing about Nigel Farage in this book. Tell me what you say about him. This is my impression. Other people might have a different view of him. He just comes across as somebody who's got a very, very fragile ego, somebody who's not particularly comfortable, particularly around women. You call him odious. In the 2015 leaders' debate, just before we went on air that night, I just remember hearing him tell somebody how much he'd had to drink in the green rooms beforehand, and it just felt this kind of bravado and just not very pleasant. But, you know, that's my impression. You introduced legislation which fundamentally would make it easier for people to self-identify their gender instead of going down the medical route. You fought for that legislation tooth and nail. Why did this matter to you so much? People look at it and they say, why did she choose this as the political hill to dial? Just to pause and remember that when this was first mooted, it was not the divisive, toxic, controversial issue it became. Trans people have always existed. They are amongst the most discriminated against and stigmatized groups in our society, and people can chuck as much hate and hostility at me on this issue as they choose. But the bottom line was that debate became so toxic. How does it sit with you, such a passionate believer in this, that you may actually have made things worse for the lives of transgender people in Scotland? No trans person has ever come to me and said, I really wish you hadn't tried to make life better. We really regret how it's all unfolded. I didn't, I think, anticipate as much as I should or engage as much as I should on some of the concerns that might then be triggered. At the point I knew it was becoming or felt it becoming as polarized, I should have. I think I say in the book, I wonder if I should have. I'm going to say it categorically. I should have said, right, okay, let's pause. Let's take a step back. I fervently believe that the rights of women in the interests of trans people are not irreconcilable at all. I should have taken a step back and said, how do we achieve this in a way that... So you're basically admitting that you should have just paused that legislation, that you became unstuck of the questions about the transgender prisoner, the rapist Isla Bryson. Why couldn't you answer that question? I think I was caught up in the... Will you answer it now, whether you believe Isla Bryson was a man? Isla Bryson identified as a woman. I think what I would say now is anybody who commits the most heinous male crime against women probably forfeits the right to be the gender of their choice. They forfeit to be the gender of their choice. That's quite... I mean, this actually goes to the heart of the difficulty around this. If you rape a woman, then I think the debate about whether they should be called a woman or not, probably. Well, why don't you simply say that Isla Bryson is a biological male? They are a biological male, but that's about whether it gets back into the self-ID thing. I should have been much more straightforward. I wasn't. But that's because of the debate. We'd lost all sense of rationality in this debate. I'm partly responsible for that. The reason I asked it is because the point you specifically make about it in the book is that this was a place where my acknowledged communication skills deserted me. And you say I lost the dressing room. Yeah, I totally did. And that was my failure. Anything I say about Isla Bryson in the wider world will immediately be taken and transferred to every trans person. And if I sometimes still seem as if I'm struggling with how to define Isla Bryson, it's not out of any concern for Isla Bryson. It's out of concern for how that then affects the wider trans community. And that is difficult. Alexander, I mean, he looms large through the whole book. Whilst he was at Westminster, there were always rumours swirling about affairs, but no hint of anything connected to the allegations that would come up. So you stand by the fact that at that point, you had no idea that he was capable of that sort of behaviour, alleged behaviour. I have examined my soul over this so many times because the answer to that is no. I had no idea that there was any suggestion of inappropriate, non-consensual, whatever term you want to use. And I've asked myself, is that absolutely the case? Or did you just willfully not see it? And I can honestly sit here and say, no, I did not have any sense of that. Do I believe he behaved inappropriately? That's different to criminally. Inappropriately on some occasions towards women, I believe that. And where I believe there has been an injustice towards women is that instead of acknowledging that and showing contrition and apologising for that, he doubled down, he traumatised all over again women by doing that. And that, even though he's no longer here, that's the bit I can't get over. I can't forgive. He died very suddenly. I was hit by a wave of emotion much stronger than I would have anticipated. Why and what was that? So at the point he died, I hadn't spoken to him for years. I felt really deeply the loss of the relationship with him. I suddenly didn't have him. He wasn't there. I couldn't talk to him. And I went through this period of, I would still talk to him in my head. I would have vivid dreams that we were still on good terms. And then I'd have this feeling of such sadness when I remembered the reality. So I went through that process. I still missed him in some bizarre way. Even today, I still miss him in some way, the person that I used to know and the relationship we used to have. But I thought I had made my peace with it, that I had got to a point where I felt nothing. And then I got a call to tell me that Alex Salmond had died. And I started crying on the phone and I just was hit by this wave of grief. And it was complicated because obviously we weren't just no longer friends. We were political enemies. There was no prospect I was going to be able to go to his funeral or anything like that. Yeah, it was a kind of strange, strange feeling. I just want to ask you about the COVID inquiry. Many people were quite taken aback to see how emotional that you were. There were some, though, that were really scathing of your appearance at that inquiry. And to be clear, there were some pretty serious criticisms made of the way you'd handled it. Former Scotland Secretary Alistair Jack said that you could cry out of one eye. He didn't believe the emotion. I suspect he did believe it. It just suited his politics better to say it was all fake. If people want to believe that I'm the kind of person that sits at a public inquiry after trying to lead the country to the best of my abilities through a global pandemic, if they want to believe that I'm going to sit in forced tears, they're never going to believe anything else. So I'll not waste too much energy trying to convince them otherwise. And the reality of it is that you needed therapy after the COVID inquiry. It was in the days, few weeks after that inquiry appearance that I fell to my lowest level. I just lost all perspective on things. And I actually started to believe. I think I use this phrase in the book, all the worst caricatures of myself that my political opponents would throw at me, I internalised them and I started to believe them. I started to believe, you know, yeah, I was responsible for every death. Sorry. Alistair Jack would certainly have something to say about this moment. And I couldn't lift myself out of it. So it was a friend actually who persuaded me to do something I had never done in my life before. I'd never felt the need to do it before of see a counsellor. And it really helped. But yeah, that was a tough time. And I actually, in fact, I'm being reminded right now that I don't know whether she'll have got to this bit in the book yet, but I hadn't even told my mum that I'd had counselling. So I must remember to tell her before she gets to this bit in the book. So your mum doesn't know that you have sex and therapy. So we need to talk about another really tough passage in your life. You talk about the miscarriage in the most painstaking detail. To this day and possibly forever, I carry a sense of guilt that I miscarried baby because I had been conflicted about the pregnancy. It was very close to the 2011 Scottish election. SNP would be going for re-election. I would have been six months pregnant at the time. Will I be able to cope with it? And I still carry a bit of that guilt. If I had been genuinely happy about the pregnancy, if I genuinely wanted it unequivocally and unambiguously, if I hadn't had all those moments of wishing I hadn't been pregnant, would the miscarriage not have happened? Was that my punishment for not? And it's totally irrational. I get how irrational that is. You write about it in extraordinary detail. I was in the toilet and... I'm not going to get into the graphic detail, but effectively, and I've heard other women describe it like this as well, I managed to call Peter through and effectively we flushed what would have become our child in the toilet. You vividly imagined this baby that you lost. Name who she was. Just tell me that bit that you wrote about her. I always felt it was a girl. I can see her in my mind's eye. Dark hair, dark eyes. She'll be 14 now. So it's a bizarre thing for somebody who... I've never had that overwhelming maternal yearning. I don't feel incomplete because I don't have a child. And yet that little girl, I can totally conjure up in my mind and still feel a sense of loss over and guilt. She's a part of my story. You write in the book, I have never considered sexuality, mine own included, to be binary. What do you mean by that? I mean what it says. It's just my view of the world and life and the way people are. If you're about to ask me, am I making some big revelation? No. Am I putting labels on myself? No. I'm just, that's how I see the world. Might we see you in a relationship with a woman? I'm just out of a marriage, so I'm not rushing into a relationship with anyone anytime soon. I'm enjoying being my own person for a while. Then not ruling it out. I'm not contemplating anything of that nature. I'm just enjoying life. That's part of the answer to that question. The other part of the answer is, in future I'd possibly want to choose to have any relationships I happen to be in as private matters, not ones that I share with the media, even with you. Was it quite liberating to write that line? The process of writing this whole book has been liberating because for the, you know, I'm going to say that for the first time I've been able to tell my story in my words and I've been able to choose the words I use. And exploring your sexuality is part of that. Exploring all sorts of things and it is a chapter that is yet unwritten. So if I'm writing things that seem really definitive or whatever, I'm at a stage and I do feel a real sense of liberation. You've got a tattoo. Midlife crisis alert. Show us the tattoo, Nicola Sturgeon, and what that is. So, I mean, what it is is known really only to me but I'll give you a kind of sense of it. It's kind of an infinity symbol with an arrow and I came up with the design myself. In summary, what it signifies to me is strength, resilience and continuing to move forward even when it feels impossible. And it might not be my last one know that I've got the teeth for it. All right, there may be more tattoos. Where's next then? I don't know. Maybe we don't need to know. Nicola Sturgeon, thank you very much. Thank you.