The final gamble

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Last year’s EU referendum produced exactly the result Sturgeon had hoped for – a UK-wide vote to Leave, while three out of every five Scots voted to Remain.

Barely concealing her glee beneath a mask of profound, statesmanlike concern, the First Minister fanned the flames of uncertainty on the morning after the referendum – when the entire country was already in a state of shock and uncertainty – wasting no time at all in raising the spectre of another independence referendum.

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When, in March, a majority of MSPs called on the UK government to fulfil its traditional role of conceding to SNP demands to authorise another referendum, Theresa May said no. This was met with incredulity north of the border. “The mandate of the Scottish Parliament must be respected and progressed,” Sturgeon insisted.

She’s not insisting any more.

Back burner blues

This week the First Minister will make the case to the Scottish Parliament that its “mandate” for a second independence referendum must be neither respected nor progressed, but put on that famous back burner.

This is not because the SNP have rediscovered a respect for the devolution settlement that reserved such matters to the UK parliament. Rather it is because earlier this month, 21 SNP MPs lost their seats to all three Unionist parties.

A defiant – and accurate – insistence that her party won more than half of Scotland’s seats cut no ice with the public; with whispers in her own party about the awfulness of the campaign and even doubts about the continued effectiveness of Sturgeon’s leadership, she had little choice but to make a screeching U-turn on the only policy her activists care about.

But if, as briefings suggest, she is moving on from independence to campaign instead for a “soft” Brexit, Sturgeon’s troubles – and her miscalculations – may not have disappeared.

The received wisdom is that the nationalists lost a swathe of seats in the North East of Scotland – including that of Salmond and of Angus Robertson, the party’s former leader at Westminster – to the Conservatives because natives were worried about being dragged towards a second divisive referendum.

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The ever uncertain Brexit

In fact it’s far more likely that the loss in support was down to Brexit.

Moray, which has returned an SNP MP to Westminster since 1987, is also the area that came closest to delivering a Leave vote last June. Euroscepticism runs high in Aberdeenshire and surrounding areas, largely (but not exclusively) because of the damage done to the fishing industry by the UK’s membership of the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).

Yet in the last year, the SNP leadership has chosen to ignore the million Scots who voted Leave and insisted that Scotland’s future is as an independent country within the EU, CFP and all.

Attempts to secure a “soft” Brexit for the UK or even for Scotland alone, in some nebulous bespoke deal, therefore, raises suspicions that the SNP wish to keep Scotland in the EU in all but name. Will fishing communities already angry at the role the EU has played in the demise of their industry play along?

Surveys suggest that as many as 350,000 SNP supporters voted Leave last June. That is a challenge to Sturgeon to square a circle that might not wish to be squared at all.

@mindhunter

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