Scheming Sturgeon’s trip to Washington was a wasteful bid to draw attention to her independence cause, says Dan Wootton

You won’t hear about this anywhere in the mainstream media, but Scheming Sturgeon’sindependence dream fell apart on a catastrophic US tour this week.

The Scottish First Minister expected to be welcomed in Washington DC as some sort of liberal hero.

Instead, she’s made her plans for a futile IndyRef2 look foolish, been criticised for undermining NATO, and unnecessarily waded into US electoral politics with a petty and immature dig at Donald Trump.

In fact, her grandstanding “selfie tour” has made dopey London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s cannabis tour of California last week look Churchillian by comparison.

Before Sturgeon had even stepped off the plane to speak at The Brookings Institute, a senior fellow from that very organisation had slammed her blatant politicising at a time of war in Europe.

Michael O’Hanlon told the Herald on Sunday Sturgeon’s plans to hold a second referendum by the end of next year were “weird” and the timing was “wrong”, given it “might appear to weaken the [NATO] alliance at a time when we need to project strength and resolve”.

Meanwhile, her trip has sparked an SNP civil war over NATO.

In her speech, Sturgeon said Putin’s Ukraine invasion had “strengthened” her “conviction” that Scotland should join NATO post-independence.

But her divided party – which ridiculously wants to scrap Trident, despite opposition from the US government and the Scottish people – aren’t with her, with the SNP’s youth wing continuing its opposition to NATO membership.

Sturgeon has also sparked a feud with her coalition partner, with the Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie stating on the record after Sturgeon’s speech they remain opposed to Scotland being part of NATO.

Meanwhile, Sturgeon is also at odds with the US government about what exactly was discussed during her visit.

The First Minister claimed she talked about the “constitutional future of the UK” during a meeting with the US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in Washington DC.

But the US government made no mention of the issue in its official statement, which said the two women discussed “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine”, as well as “Scotland’s support of COP-26”.

The same thing happened when Sturgeon met US Speaker Nancy Pelosi and claimed she’d discussed “Scotland’s future”, even though the US politician didn’t reference it in her post-meeting read out.

But when all else fails, Sturgeon jumps on the Trump bashing bandwagon.

In a highly unprofessional move that broke convention, Sturgeon was asked at the Brookings Institution what policies the US could adopt to better assist European energy security.

Is she a leftie student politician trying to show off or a credible leader?

No wonder Scottish Tory constitution spokesman Donald Cameron raged…

“Scottish taxpayers are sick and tired of watching their hard-earned cash being spent on PR, photo-ops and promoting an independence referendum that poll after poll has shown that the majority don’t want. Instead of trying to convert US officials to the selfish cause of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon should be focused on tackling her government’s woeful performance here in Scotland.”

Scheming Sturgeon’s trip was nothing more than a wasteful bid to draw attention to her futile independence cause on the international stage.

But it failed spectacularly, which is why the rest of the media have decided not to talk about it.

After all, they must not embarrass Queen Nic.