Nicola Sturgeon will be the star witness during the three weeks of the hearing. Photo: SCOTLAND GOVERNMENT/AFP PHOTO
Nicola Sturgeon will be Lawyers have suggested that the Covid inquiry into how her focus on Scottish independence influenced decision-making about the pandemic.
On the opening day of the Scottish phase yesterday The inquiry in Edinburgh announced at the hearing that it would examine how the SNP government's handling of the pandemic was influenced by the goal of secession from the UK.
Ms Sturgeon, who has been first minister during the pandemic, will be the star witness in three weeks of hearings on Scotland's decision-making.
In her opening address, Jamie Dawson, barrister at the inquiry, said lawyers will not shy away from the question of whether ministers have become distracted from independence.
He told the hearing: “The extent to which the approach to tackling the pandemic has been influenced by the Scottish Government's key objective of achieving Scottish independence is also an issue we will seek to address in this module.”
In the midst of a pandemic, Unionists Ms Sturgeon has regularly been accused of using the crisis to try to drive a wedge between Scotland and the rest of the UK.
She has repeatedly tried to restrict travel between Scotland and the rest of the UK. England and regularly used her almost daily televised press briefings to attack the UK government.
Matt Hancock, then Britain's health secretary, later said she would “love” to build a “Trump-style wall between her fiefdom and the rest of the UK.”
The same policy was implemented, but a little later.
Mr. Ms Sturgeon also had a serious row with Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, after attempting to ban travel between Scotland and parts of north-west England.
Although Ms Sturgeon insisted she was taking a more cautious approach than UK ministers. Critics noted that she often stuck to the same quarantine easing policies, but implemented them a little later.
UK ministers have also accused her of leaking details of confidential meetings.
Mr Hancock said earlier rumors about the inquiry that Ms Sturgeon would “have some input” into “what was essentially the same decision.”
The Scottish National Party has tried to use Ms Sturgeon's performance during the pandemic to help her win the 2021 election. Holyrood election.
Ms Sturgeon later said the result, which left the Scottish National Party one seat short of a Holyrood majority and then formed a coalition with the Scottish Greens, provided a mandate for a second independence referendum .
Ms Sturgeon said in April 2021 that Scots had “looked at their” leaders during the pandemic and that it had “made people think about the benefits of self-government”.
Continuing his statement, Mr Dawson said that the investigation will look at whether a separate approach is needed and whether there is evidence unique to Scotland to support this.
Failure to say whether WhatsApps were removed
“We will examine the extent to which the Scottish Government's divergence from the UK Government's approach and systems was based on sound advice and a reasonable balance of competing considerations.
“Whether there was, in fact, separate Scottish evidence that could and should have been used to justify separate from the different Scottish approach, whether the differences were significant or merely cosmetic, whether they led to different results, they were to some extent motivated by factors other than the best response to the virus for the safety of the people of Scotland.”
Opposition parties have accused Humza Yousaf and his deputy Shona Robison of misleading Parliament with WhatsApp messages requested by the inquiry.
Mr Dawson said 28,000 messages from 85 WhatsApp groups were shared with Baroness Hallett and her team.
Ms Sturgeon declined to say whether she had deleted the messages, and while the former First Minister was not named, Mr Dawson said the messages provided concerned “prominent ministerial decision-makers and others in key advisory positions in the government Scotland.
Mr Dawson also said there were “no minutes taken” of the “golden command” group discussing decisions on the pandemic, which included the then First Minister and/or Deputy First Minister, senior political advisers and other members of the cabinet.
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Also speaking at the hearing was Claire Mitchell, representing Scottish families of those killed by Covid, who criticized Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak for the evidence they provided to the inquiry.
However, she said the inquiry would need to examine whether were unionist politicians right to accuse Ms Sturgeon of playing “political games” or that she was right in making other decisions.
“Driven by a desire to contain and suppress the virus”
“There have, of course, been suggestions that the then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and other Scottish politicians were playing politics rather than being properly involved in decisions to save lives. Was this a prediction of British politicians about their own behavior?
“Or is there any truth to it? Were the cancellations of mass gatherings totemic, were decisions taken to lift lockdown at different times in England simply for the sake of doing things differently, or were they a reflection of a different stage of the virus?
Geoffrey Mitchell KC, representing the Scottish Government, said he accepted that “some decisions could have been made differently.”
He said cooperation with the UK Government had been “generally quite effective” but added: “Significant discussion with the Scottish Government was sometimes absent from UK Government discussions that affected Scotland.”
“There was no Scottish Government response to the pandemic that was guided by anything other than the desire to contain and suppress the virus in the country . to minimize the overall harm this could cause.”
The investigation continues Wednesday.
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