This year is more than just an election year. It also marks two major constitutional anniversaries in Scotland and, if trends continue, it may counterintuitively signify the start of a new, more patient phase of the journey towards Scotland becoming independent. That’s not a line you’ll hear coming from the SNP or the yes movement, but it is reflective of the considered thinking taking place away from the political frontline ahead of what everyone knows will be a difficult election.
In May it will be 25 years since the first Scottish parliament elections. In September it will be 10 years from the first referendum on Scotland’s independence. These events are part of a political continuum that has been decades, if not centuries, in the making and that has not yet reached its end. Yet current analysis, particularly outside Scotland, mistakenly suggests that the movement toward Scotland’s independence will somehow be over if one election is lost. Nothing could be less true. If we step back from short-term electoral calculations and take a long view of constitutional change in Scotland, it seems to be headed in only one direction: independence.
