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JIM SPENCE: Why the party’s over for Scottish independence supporters

Nicola Sturgeon is still dangling hope of a referendum in 2023 but Scottish independence dreams are looking tattered, says Jim Spence. Photo: Shutterstock.
Nicola Sturgeon is still dangling hope of a referendum in 2023 but Scottish independence dreams are looking tattered, says Jim Spence. Photo: Shutterstock.

I’m beginning to think Scottish independence is a busted flush.

“The things that all of us thought were possible in 2014 or 2017, we can no longer hold to these things”, Nicola Sturgeon told BBC Scotland’s Glenn Campbell in an interview last week.

She was talking about her U turn on the Cambo oilfield.

But her change of mind, on something she believed passionately in just those few years ago, might have echoes for those of us wondering if the same mindset applies to Scottish independence.

I suspect I’m not alone in thinking the party is almost over for independence hopes-  and that holding to them is now no longer as important to some folk as it was.

 

If the movement can’t command a substantial lead in the polls at this stage, despite a sleaze mired Conservative government, it never will.

The most recent polls, even those conducted by independence backers, suggest support is slipping away.

Nicola Sturgeon’s position that a second referendum, which she hopes to hold in 2023, is Covid-dependent looks to me like carrot-dangling.

Conspiracy theorists think the First Minister has been seduced by the British establishment.

I think it’s much simpler than that.

She knows she can’t deliver independence.

With no guarantee of EU membership, huge uncertainty over our future financial position, and in a world dramatically changed by Covid, not enough folk are prepared to risk everything they’ve worked a lifetime for.

SNP priorities don’t speak to voters like me

Speaking as one who stopped voting Labour and switched to the SNP after Margaret Thatcher’s third successive victory, hoping we could create a fairer country, I now find myself ambivalent.

The SNP has become distracted by transgender issues and other minority interest matters which don’t affect the bulk of the population.

Their deification of the EU also sticks in the craw of those who regard that institution as a bastion of self-interest and hypocrisy which discriminates against those who aren’t members of their club.

Preaching freedom of movement for cheap fruit pickers from Eastern Europe, living in lousy conditions on miserable wages in draughty caravans, made many Scottish indy liberal types feel very virtuous.

How do those high principled folk now deal with the sight of desperate faces pressed against Polish border razor wire fences, seeking refuge from war, hunger, and poverty, and facing a wall of guns to block their path to the prosperous EU?

They remain silent.

The current polls showing diminishing support for independence leave many in the SNP wrestling with a problem.

They’re the ones who are making a good living from continuing to preach indy knowing they have no power to deliver a second referendum.

How do they maintain their lifestyles and keep their supporters on board, without them catching on that the ball is not only on the slates, but burst?

Scottish independence is the loser in this state of limbo

Beside an SNP with no clear route map to independence is a UK Labour party, struggling to establish what it stands for.

Taken together it looks like we’re condemned to limbo in Scotland.

And the only winners, despite their sleaze and slime, will be the Tories.

If Boris can sweeten the stench of corruption infecting his party he’ll be riding high again.

And if he can’t, the Tories are ruthless enough to know that by ditching the Eton mess he’s created, they’re still favourites for the next election.

There’s little we can do about it in Scotland and Nicola Sturgeon, I suspect, knows it.

The Tories are already revving up their tanks to roll over the Nationalist lawn with a series of measures to bypass Holyrood and give direct funding to local councils.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the man many are tipping to succeed him, chancellor Rishi Sunak.

That’s a good thing by the way.

I’m in favour of the Old Catholic social teaching principle of subsidiarity which insists that bigger institutions in society shouldn’t unduly interfere with smaller local institutions.

Power being decentralised from London and Edinburgh is a fine thing in my book.

But with a potential winter of discontent looming and the Scottish government being challenged on everything from hospital waiting times to shipbuilding disasters, the independence fizz has gone flat.

Tories look like winners, while Scottish independence supporters lose out

Boris’s popularity may be fading fast, but the Tories still hold a huge majority.

Along with the capture of the Red wall in Northern England, I suspect around a quarter of Scots who are traditional unionists and conservatives will also back them.

All Under One Banner march through the centre of Glasgow to protest against London rule and Brexit last January. Photo: Stewart Kirby/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

I think the Tories understand human nature better than other parties.

The urge to take care of yourself and your family matters more than flags and dewy eyed guff about a 14th century Mafioso called Robert the Bruce.

Many may now wonder if that self interest is also the main driving force behind the power brokers in the SNP who seem assured of continued berths at Holyrood.

Meantime others in the indy movement are wondering whether some of those SNP MPs in Westminster are there to settle down instead of being there to settle up.