2 days ago
Nicola Sturgeon says monarchy 'should end soon' at book launch
The former first minister was interviewed by ex-BBC Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark in a packed out McEwan Hall as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
As part of the conversation, Sturgeon reflected on her encounters with Queen Elizabeth, a woman she said she had had "huge admiration" for.
But she went on to say King Charles and other members of the royal family so not have the same "mystique" as the Queen did, and so people are coming to realise the "absurdities" of the monarchy.
Asked about when the monarchy should end, Sturgeon said: "I think it should end probably quite soon."
READ MORE: National Library of Scotland debunks claim it 'banned' gender-critical book
After a round of applause, she went on: "I think we will look back, and I don't know if this will be in 10 years or 100 years, and history will look back on the death of Queen Elizabeth as probably the beginning of the end of the monarchy because there was such a mystique around her and, with the greatest of respect to the King and the other members of the royal family, I just don't think they have that to the same extent and I think without that, what we focus more on and what we will focus more on are the absurdities of the monarchy."
Sturgeon has been under the spotlight this whole week following the release of Frankly, which officially came out on Thursday but has been available in bookshops since Monday.
The relationship between Sturgeon and her predecessor Alex Salmond dominated the interview, with Wark asking early on in the chat whether Sturgeon felt Salmond had ever been guilty of "coercive control".
Wark claimed there had "almost been a thread of coercive control" from Salmond running through the book which she asked Sturgeon about. The former first minister replied: "I wouldn't describe it as that.
"He was an incredibly strong and charismatic individual and for much of my life he was a force for good. He encouraged me to reach beyond what I would have considered my abilities to be, he pushed me on. I once said ages ago he believed in me before I believed in myself and all of that is true. I try to be true to that in the book and not to rewrite history."
She went on to describe how Salmond's approval and disapproval of her impacted her greatly, something she came to realise through getting counselling.
She said: "What I do think is that I realised a couple of times, even after I was first minister, that his approval mattered to me and his disapproval knocked by confidence and I think latterly, he probably played on that a little bit, but that was something I realised was there through my psychologist."
Sturgeon was also heavily quizzed about her leadership around gender reform.
Earlier this week Sturgeon said she should have paused gender reform legislation that was going through the Scottish Parliament towards the end of her tenure.
READ MORE: SNP demand UK Government act amid Israeli E1 plan in West Bank
The Gender Recognition Reform Bill would have allowed transgender people to self-identify and simplified the requirements to acquire a gender recognition certificate (GRC), before it was blocked by Westminster from becoming law.
She said during the interview that one of the reasons she may not have paused was to not "give in" to transphobic people.
"When it became so toxic, maybe I should have taken a step back and paused to see if we could find a less divisive way through it. Would that have worked? I don't know.
"But I guess what stopped me, and I'm not saying this was the right decision, but if I look back on what stopped me at the time [...], every time I say this I get howls of derision even though I caveat it in the way I'm about to caveat it, but I don't think everyone who disagrees with me on this issue is transphobic. But this whole issue has been hijacked and weaponised by people who are transphobic.
"I think I perhaps worried that to pause at the time would have been to give in to that."
