Is Scotland heading for independence?
“Something has happened this year without precedent in our political history,” said Kevin Pringle in The Sunday Times. For the first time, a series of polls has shown a sustained majority for Scottish independence. One of the latest polls last week showed a 55-45 split in favour of separation, an all-time high for the “yes” vote and a reversal of the 2014 referendum result. Around two-thirds of people in Scotland under 55 would now vote for independence, including 72% of 16- to 34-year-olds. If a majority of pro-independence MSPs are elected next May, which looks like a racing certainty, the Tories will come under immense pressure to grant a new referendum. No wonder Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove is said to be in “save the Union” talks with pro-UK figures across the parties. But is it already too late?
“Forgive me if I don’t get overly excited,” said Mark Smith in The Herald (Glasgow). Scottish independence does seem to have momentum today, but there have been false dawns before. In private, senior SNP figures say the tipping point they really need to hit is 60% support. Although it’s still unclear exactly what’s behind the recent rise in support, many believe it’s down to the heightened profile of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during the coronavirus pandemic, and the widespread perception that she has handled the crisis more adeptly than Boris Johnson. If that’s the case, then support may fall away as the Covid crisis wanes. Sturgeon looks “unstoppable” now, said John Rentoul in The Independent, but there is an outside chance that the SNP’s “mediocre record in government” will one day come back to haunt it, or that Scottish voters may tire of the independence campaign. In a recent poll, 52% said it “distracts” from other issues.
The Tories’ strategy is to play for time, said John Harris in The Guardian. Even if the SNP wins a landslide in May’s Holyrood elections, ministers believe that a recession and lingering concerns over the pandemic might enable them to fend off calls for a referendum for another couple of years. The hope is that, by then, public anger about Brexit, which a majority of Scottish voters did not want, may have receded. It might go that way. But given the unpopularity of Johnson’s administration north of the border, “Scotland’s estrangement from Westminster” might instead just deepen over time. Predicting the future in a period as uncertain as this is a fool’s game, but the current situation does seem “to point in one direction: towards a potentially historic showdown, and the fissures decisively opened in 2014 becoming unmendable”.