Like an arthritic old tree in autumn, the Scottish National party is shedding its voters. It does this almost seasonally, a shrivel followed years later by another spring. And yet the SNP’s soul and cause, independence, isn’t shedding its supporters. Backing for that stays roughly where it’s been for a decade, at just under half (occasionally just over half) the poll samples. How does that make sense?
Scotland can seem an imperturbable land. Every year, the hills change colour from russet to green, as the geese end their loud argument, rise and head north. And yet vast things have happened suddenly here. Ten thousand years ago, the climate abruptly shot up by 9C in little over a century. Glaciers melted, trees appeared; deer, human beings, wolves and bears ventured back to a cold but habitable Caledonia. Two thousand years later, the coast of Norway collapsed into the sea (the “Storegga slide”), sending a mountainous tsunami roaring across to scour eastern Scotland and its terrified hunter-gatherers. Scottish politics in our time can seem dreary, pettily fractious. But when they do change, it’s precipitate. The old landscape is scoured clean of its previous ecology.
