The SNP’s Westminster walkout was a game-changer

DESPITE the seriousness of the power tussle between Westminster and Holyrood over powers returning to UK Parliaments after Brexit, it hasn’t been easy for the SNP to get people energised about it.

The issue often becomes bogged down in the language of bills, clauses, constitutions and courts.

What the situation needed was a game-changer; a gesture that would put it on the map in a way that people instinctively understand, and the SNP’s House of Commons walkout during Prime Minister’s Questions this week marked that turning point.

As a result, Scotland’s fears about Westminster gobbling up powers that Holyrood insists it should have control over began dominating UK news headlines.

People stopped to pay attention, and if the surge in SNP membership in the following days was anything to go by, they didn’t like what they saw from the UK Government.

The challenge now for the SNP, as former leader Alex Salmond says in these pages today, is to maintain momentum. Salmond advocates a disruptive approach to Westminster politics, and reprimands MPs who, he says, have been more concerned with “winning the gold star for good attendance rather than independence”.

There is a sense that the tide is turning in favour of the SNP’s approach to Brexit. Indeed, Murray Foote, former editor of the Daily Record and an architect of the famous “vow” signed by UK party leaders just before the independence referendum pledging to give Scotland more power within the union, this week declared himself now a supporter of Scottish independence.

After the recent publication of the Sustainable Growth Commission report on the economics of an independent Scotland, and now the rebellious mood of the SNP’s MPs, all eyes will be on the polls to see if there is a substantial mood emerging in favour of Scottish independence.