Whisper it, but will the SNP’s single aim end up withering on the vine?
MOST political leaders project an illusion of permanence, as if they do not want to countenance the idea that they would ever leave office.
In a radio interview yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon made a point of saying, at least twice, that she would ‘not be around forever’ as First Minister.
She had been asked what she would do in the event of defeat in a second referendum, if one were to take place, and responded that she wasn’t ‘planning to lose’.
But research published at the weekend suggested that in the next Holyrood election, in 2021, the SNP could fall short of a majority – and wouldn’t be able to form one even with the help of the Greens.
Nor can the SNP plan to hold another vote on splitting up the UK next year be taken seriously – even if Jeremy Corbyn were to win on December 12, and cave in to SNP demands for a second Scexit poll, there simply isn’t enough time to organise one.
Just as Miss Sturgeon won’t be around forever, it’s also likely that her party’s core objective of dismantling the UK has a shelf-life – and that we may have reached ‘peak Nat’, the point at which support for independence can only recede.
The era of constitutional politics must end eventually – even if it feels as though it never will; and when it does go, so too will the key SNP message that Scotland needs an escape route from Brexit.
True, polls are fickle, but all the evidence so far is that Boris Johnson is heading for a Commons majority next week, and there are signs of a Tory surge in Scotland, as wafer-thin Nationalist majorities threaten to turn to dust.
Imagine a victorious Johnson regime finally implementing Brexit, and the economic revival that could follow as years of uncertainty came to an end: what then for the SNP?
After all, Mr Johnson could prove to be a highly effective Premier, just as he was a transformative and energetic Mayor of London; when Brexit’s over, Miss Sturgeon may not have much left to rail against.
Experience elsewhere shows that independence movements tend to wither on the vine once robbed of their central mission, albeit over many years.
In Canada, there were two referendum defeats for those seeking sovereignty for Quebec: once in 1980, when separatism was rejected by 60 per cent of the Quebec electorate; and again in 1995, when the ‘No’ campaign won, but only by a very small margin – 50.6 per cent to 49.4 per cent.
Since then, legislation has been enforced which means that future proposals for independence in Quebec would need to be backed by 60 per cent of the electorate.
The Parti Quebecois (PQ) – the equivalent of the SNP in Quebec – is in the political doldrums; the current governing party in Quebec, Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), is not separatist, though is seen as broadly nationalist.
At a federal level, Bloc Quebecois, which is nationalist and separatist, recently increased its tally from 10 to 32 seats in Canada’s House of Commons.
It was a result that hugely weakened the mandate of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who claimed following the election in October that ‘from coast to coast to coast, tonight Canadians rejected division’.
Most commentators agreed that the breakthrough for Bloc Quebecois was probably a negative judgment on Trudeau’s record, rather than a genuine indicator of renewed enthusiasm for a breakaway Quebec.
In a large-scale opinion poll held in late 2016, 82 per cent of Quebec respondents to a survey conducted by the CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] agreed with the statement: ‘Ultimately, Quebec should stay in Canada.’
So separatism is something of a busted flush in Quebec, and the Bloc Quebecois is talking only in terms of more autonomy for Quebec – rather than agitating for another referendum.
The CAQ was founded by a former PQ cabinet minister, and has made clear it will never endorse another referendum; it has prospered on that basis as a centre-right party that has advocated austerity.
All of which shows that successful political parties depend on pragmatism – there’s no point continuing to plug a product no-one wants to buy.
Miss Sturgeon was also asked yesterday about illegal referendums – such as the one that took place in Catalonia in 2017, which was declared unlawful by the Spanish courts.
Understandably, she was against the idea, though some in the SNP, including Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil, have called for a unilateral declaration of independence for Scotland.
Miss Sturgeon has insisted these proposed short-cuts are ill-advised, and instead she backs ‘political solutions’.
That said, she has kept alive the prospect of challenging the UK Government’s expected refusal to sanction another Scexit vote in the courts – so maybe the odd short-cut is permissible.
Catalan separatists now control the balance of power in the region’s parliament, with an independent president, but there are signs that their cause is also beginning to wane.
In September, police in the Catalan capital of Barcelona said that around 600,000 people had taken part in an annual event to promote independence for Catalonia – dramatically down on the 1 million who turned out in the previous two years.
Meanwhile, a Catalan government poll in July suggested 48.3 per cent of Catalans are against the creation of an independent state, and 44 per cent in favour.
The Spanish state’s decisive action to suspend Catalonian autonomy, and put separatist leaders in jail, is a tough and controversial approach – but might have succeeded in putting the brakes on the independence movement, or indeed putting it into reverse.
If Boris Johnson can continue to stand firm against the SNP, making it clear that another Scottish independence referendum will never be given the go-ahead, it’s likely that support for breaking up the UK will subside.
Any poll favouring independence by a majority is vanishingly rare, and usually dismissed as an outlier.
The SNP insisted after the 2014 poll that a level of 60 per cent backing for Scottish independence over a period of a year would be needed to trigger another Scexit vote – a benchmark that remains elusive.
Whoever replaces Miss Sturgeon will inevitably start with a far lower public profile; for a cause that has depended for its electoral success on charismatic leaders, muscling their way onto UK political talk-shows and TV debates, this could be a major problem. How many stars in waiting are there in the lacklustre SNP ranks?
If the SNP were no longer dedicated purely to the pursuit of independence, it might well continue to command electoral support – but its track record would be exposed even more mercilessly to outside scrutiny.
It might be able to avoid falling apart at the seams, or becoming a hollowed-out shell – a party without a purpose; but it would need to discover a talent for the day-to-day grind of administration, without the distraction of constitutional posturing.
And for that reason, it’s entirely possible that without its ideological fixation, the SNP – just like its current leader – wouldn’t be ‘around forever’.
*This column appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail on December 3, 2019.
