Nicola Sturgeon declared this week she is part of the “independence generation” that will take Scotland out of the United Kingdom. She may be right. Generational differences matter a lot more in modern politics than in the past. Young people in Scotland tend to be pro-independence and may remain so as they age. Since the constitutional issue shapes party politics in Scotland so strongly, a lot will have to alter if it is still to be part of the UK in 2050.
Back here in 2022, however, things are not looking quite so rosy for Sturgeon, for the Scottish National party or for their objective of a second independence referendum. The SNP has long been the most message-disciplined party in our politics, but beneath the unchanging convictions displayed on its surface there is well founded unease about where the independence campaign will be by the middle of the decade.
You would not have noticed any of this from Sturgeon’s speech to the SNP’s Aberdeen party conference on Monday. Party leaders’ conference speeches are built on the repetition of keywords. In his to Labour this autumn, Keir Starmer mentioned “government” 27 times. In hers to the Tories, Liz Truss made 29 references to “growth”. Both sets of reiterations were deliberate. Starmer wanted to instil the message that Labour is ready to govern; Truss that the Tories are focused on firing up the economy.
In Aberdeen on Monday, Sturgeon talked about independence a staggering 58 times. Having teed herself up with a Sunday interview with Laura Kuenssberg explaining how she detests the Tories, she delivered an impassioned case for independence. But in the end she protested too much. For the truth is that Sturgeon’s route to a second referendum and a yes vote is looking very fragile and she was hoping the party had not noticed.
Sturgeon has always had to perform a political balancing act. She must reassure nationalist fanatics that she is as dedicated as they are to the party’s animating cause. At the same time, she must satisfy less dogmatic supporters that she can run the country until the time seems opportune for trying to reverse the 2014 defeat. It generates a familiar cleavage – the old German Green divide between dogmatic “fundis” and pragmatic “realos” applies in the SNP, too.
On the face of it, this ought to be political harvest time for the SNP. The gift that has kept on giving over the past decade – Conservative mishandling of Scotland – is delivering as generously as it ever did. Truss is proving to be a natural successor to David Cameron, the Brexit vote and to Boris Johnson’s entire premiership. Her contempt towards Sturgeon is explicit, and her economic priorities have minuscule Scottish support – just 4% of Scots said the September mini-budget would leave them better off.
Sturgeon’s problem is that this still does not translate into a sufficiently decisive embrace of separation for SNP realos to feel confidence, even though, at the same time, SNP fundis are increasingly impatient for action. That is why Sturgeon embarked in June on the twin-pronged strategy of pressing the UK supreme court to allow the Scottish rather than the UK parliament to call a second referendum and, if that fails, of treating the 2024 UK election as a single-issue proxy poll on independence.
It is a fragile strategy, full of potential pitfalls, especially for such a key political issue. Sturgeon’s case has been argued in the court this week. Supporters say she will win. Opponents – and many neutrals – say she won’t. Either way, the supreme court president Lord Reed said the case may take many months, which will be tricky for the independence campaign. There may have to be further hearings, too.
Yet even if she doesn’t win, then in Sturgeon’s plan the 2024 general election would become a surrogate referendum. The fragility here is even greater than with the legal route, because of credibility problems. Why should Sturgeon be allowed to decree that what other parties think is a UK general election is in fact a Scottish referendum? And what would be the rules?
This is where the SNP reaches its biggest looming problem of all – the Labour revival in the polls. For the past 12 years, nationalists have been able to argue that only the SNP and independence can protect Scots against an English-dominated Tory party that rides roughshod over them. This has been the motherlode of all their campaigning. Now, though, there is another option.
That other option is that a Labour revival could protect Scots, too. Labour could do it, what is more, with none of the accompanying divisiveness of an independence vote, none of the uncertainty about Scotland’s currency and none of the risks of a hard border with the rest of the UK. If recent polls are a guide, Labour is on course to form the next UK government. Its argument to Scots will therefore be that if you want to get rid of the Tories, vote Labour not SNP.
None of this is to suggest that Labour will ever “regain” Scotland from the SNP. A Scotland-wide poll at the beginning of October showed Labour making big gains from the Conservatives but the SNP continuing to dominate overall. But these are early days, and the marginal impact on the outcome of even a small number of Labour gains in Scotland in 2024 would be great. It would also derail Sturgeon’s independence strategy.
The Tories are already arguing, as they did in 2015, that either a majority or a minority Labour administration will mean the SNP tail wagging the Labour dog. But this is not 2015, for all sorts of reasons. Starmer could not have been clearer that he will do no deals with Sturgeon. If Labour wins an outright majority, that issue will not arise anyway. But nor need it arise if Starmer finds himself heading a minority one.
The SNP may indeed hold the balance of power in a Labour-led hung parliament after 2024. But this could result in the SNP being Labour’s hostage not the other way around. Ask yourself this: in what political circumstances would the SNP vote with the Conservatives to bring down a Labour administration and open the door to a government by the party that Sturgeon detests and which the SNP has spent years denouncing? It is hard to think of any such circumstances, but if it did happen, the consequences for the SNP’s credibility could be devastating.
Forced to bet, I would say Scottish independence still seems more likely than not eventually. But the road ahead would be very bumpy. Look at what happened in Catalonia last week, where militant nationalists pulled out of their coalition with moderates on the grounds that independence from Spain was not being pursued strongly enough. A split like that could very easily happen in Scotland. In that case Sturgeon and the independence generation could find themselves growing old living on their inflation-proofed UK pensions for longer than they would like.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
