There is palpable glee in Westminster at the current predicament of the Scottish National party – with Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive, arrested last week, but released without charge pending further inquiries, as part of an investigation into SNP finances. But the unionist joy is misplaced.
Even without a resolution, and amid the party’s denial of any wrongdoing, the assumption is that independence is the cult of a political clique that has finally been rumbled.
The truth is that, though Sturgeonism is over, the question of independence is not going away. First under Alex Salmond and then for nine years under Sturgeon, the SNP soared from near insignificance to enjoy more than 15 years of one-party rule in Scotland. It currently holds 48 of the country’s 59 Westminster seats and led the Labour party by 26 points at the 2019 election.
Even after a leadership election that exposed all possible fissures within the party at its highest heights, and even under the stewardship of its unexciting new leader, Humza Yousaf, a revolution would be needed to remove it from power in Edinburgh in 2026.
Doubly remarkable perhaps, for on any standards Scotland under Sturgeon has not been well run. Its devolved NHS oversees some of western Europe’s worst mortality rates. Its drug death rate is the highest in Europe. School performance has lagged behind England in key subjects. Once lovely landscapes have been scarred by subsidised wind turbines. Scotland’s dependence on Treasury cash from London is acute.
Sturgeon’s popularity has been a stark case of modern voters rating personal appeal in a politician more highly than policies or competence. Witness Boris Johnson, the exemplar in that regard. It explains why SNP voters have persistently declined to give similar support to Sturgeon’s cry for independence when asked in opinion polls or at the 2014 referendum, when 55% opted for continued union.
In truth, Scottish opinion is split down the middle on the issue, albeit with younger voters strongly in favour. Support has recently wavered between narrowly for independence during lockdown to narrowly against in the latest Survation poll. Since common sense suggests there should be an overwhelming demand for independence before another referendum, we are unlikely to see one in the near future.
But Westminster should not rest easy. For even with the SNP’s troubles in plain view, the status quo cannot be a satisfactory outcome. A quarter century of election victories for an independence movement cannot be wished away overnight. A solid 45% of Scottish voters clearly do not like being governed from England and their case should be heard.
Though Scotland today enjoys considerable delegated autonomy, the image of English oppression is embedded. Margaret Thatcher’s imposition of a Scottish poll tax in 1989, a year before England’s, was bitterly resented. So too was Johnson’s 2020 declaration that devolution had been a “mistake” and a “disaster”.
The answer has to be to make Scotland’s government more accountable for Scotland’s needs. The form of tiered federalism now suggested by the former prime minister Gordon Brown should be taken seriously by both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. Further autonomy requires some of the fiscal devolution practised in countries such as Spain and Switzerland.
So far, the SNP’s hope of liberation from London’s supremacy is fiscally illiterate, a reality that Sturgeon persistently ignored and her successor must understand. Scotland cannot further free itself of British control – whether it heads for full independence or not – as long as its budget remains dependent on London.
There is a case to be made, and it could be done to good effect. Without Sturgeon and Sturgeonism it will be more difficult, but, when the dust settles, however it settles, the core demand and the core possibility remain.
• This article was amended on 11 April 2023. The next Scottish parliamentary election is expected to be held in 2026, not 2024 as an earlier version suggested.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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