Between Brexit and another sex scandal, Sturgeon’s run out of road

Scottish independence is less likely than ever, and the SNP looks like a tired party too long in power

It ought to have been the perfect launchpad for the next Scottish independence campaign. Nicola Sturgeon was preparing for her first Budget after her party’s general election success. An Old Etonian Tory had just pushed through a Brexit that most Scots voted against, nudging support for independence past the 50 per cent mark. Yesterday’s Budget was the perfect chance for a new SNP message: Scotland wants economic freedom, it wants to stay in Europe and is ready to fight.

Instead: bedlam. The finance secretary, Derek Mackay, quit just hours before he was due to deliver the Budget after admitting to “foolishness” in bombarding a 16-year-old boy with text messages. Worse, it fits a trend. It starts with Angus Macneil’s “foolishness” (his word) with a Church of Scotland minister’s teenage daughter. Then the affair that saw Stewart Hosie stand down as SNP deputy leader, then Mark Mcdonald quit as a minister after a sexting scandal. It’s all a bit much.

You can, of course, argue that each of these is an individual and personal tragedy. At a push, you might laugh it off, say that (to use the joke in Holyrood) the nationalists can be seen as “romantic mujahideen” whose antics don’t affect their politics. But, as Sir John Major found, there comes a point where a pattern is spotted. Unkind words such as “sleaze” are used – and labels stick. Voters do not see isolated cases but a theme: the arrogance, carelessness and decadence of a party too long in power.

When I was a reporter in the Scottish Parliament almost 20 years ago, the SNP were the decent ones. Labour were clannish and complacent, having long governed municipal Scotland and expecting to run Holyrood for the foreseeable. The phrase “Scottish Tory” had become a contradiction in terms. I came to admire Alex Salmond and his dedicated team of outsiders, who brought fresh ideas and seemed to relish winning people over in friendly argument. And they did, taking Holyrood and almost winning a referendum.

But after almost 13 years in power, the SNP are starting to look as tired and embattled as Major’s Tories in 1997. Mr Mackay, 42, had been tipped as Ms Sturgeon’s most likely successor: he is now suspended from the party, awaiting investigation. It doesn’t help that her predecessor, Mr Salmond, is awaiting trial for 14 alleged offences against 10 different women, all strenuously denied, in what will be one of the most high-profile criminal cases since the trial of Jeremy Thorpe. This will be followed by another Holyrood investigation. All told, this promises to be a year for the SNP to forget.

Ms Sturgeon is now on her way out. Party members who once idolised her are starting to despair about the lack of any serious shift in support for independence. The Tories fought the last election on a pledge to refuse any request for another referendum, which Boris Johnson has duly done. So Ms Sturgeon now finds herself out of road. Last week, she all but admitted as much, saying that there can be no “shortcuts or clever wheezes” (such as a Catalan-style protest referendum). Any move to independence, she said, must be legal. That is to say: Westminster-approved.

To many nationalists, this is defeatism. The old split in the party between pragmatists and radicals is opening up again. Some MPS, such as Joanna Cherry, drop hints about legal action that might allow Holyrood to go ahead anyway. But it’s a bit of a stretch, given that the devolution settlement was designed to make such a move legally impossible. Then there’s public opinion: polls showing majority support for independence are rare. The surge of backing the SNP hoped for, especially after Brexit, has just not materialised.

In fact, Brexit has – in many ways – made the Union far more secure. The nationalists made much fuss about the pain they expected from leaving the EU’S single market and customs union. So what about leaving the customs union and single market of the United Kingdom? Then the border issue: the agony seen in the Northern Ireland debate would be back, writ large. Making Hadrian’s Wall into an EU border, with questions over pet quarantine and even passports, is something no one will relish.

The “independence in Europe” mantra that the SNP used for years also looks like a hopelessly long shot. The Spanish would certainly veto Scottish membership rather than let Scots blaze a secessionist trail for Catalans and Basques to follow. Also, EU members need to keep a government deficit under 3 per cent of economic output. The chasm between Scotland’s state spending and tax haul means a deficit of 7pc, by far the worst in the developed world – and that’s including what little remains of the North Sea oil money. A vote for independence would mean a vote for sado-austerity.

As part of the family of the United Kingdom, Scotland has been insulated from the oil price collapse. There’s talk in No10 of doing even more: perhaps offering NHS England operations to those who have been waiting for too long in Scotland. Studies show the differences in how the Scots and English see the world are not widening but narrowing to the point of nonexistence. Even Brexit was backed by almost two in five Scots.

So what, now, remains of the case for independence? The theory that home rule means better public services has been tested to destruction by two decades of devolution. The economic case has vanished. The idea of Scots being so culturally different from the English as to necessitate divorce from England is demonstrable nonsense. The SNP used to present themselves as being better, more decent, more dependable than the appallingly behaved Tories. This is a bit harder to argue today.

If Ms Sturgeon stays now, it will be to see her party through the tumult of the next few months and transition to a new leadership. It has options: take Kate Forbes, who stepped in at the last minute to deliver Mr Mackay’s Budget and handle questions after. She’s young, but the SNP are beginning to recognise that they have plenty of time. When Ruth Davidson quit as leader of the Scottish Tories she told friends that her work was done, that the threat of independence had vanished for the foreseeable future. All told, it looks like a pretty safe bet.