Setback for SNP doesn’t mean that referendum disappears it can go on back burner

Does the election result mean an end to prospects of a second independence referendum? Does the election of 13 Unionist Tory MPS and the loss of veterans like Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson mean Scotland has hit “peak independence”? It really is too soon to say. The SNP’S current case for independence is based on two presumptions – a near permanent Tory majority at Westminster and the likelihood Scots will want a choice before being dragged out of Europe against the will of the majority. Both are still valid.

Ex-labour voters may have drifted back from the SNP in the final days of the cam-

paign, attracted by an avowedly socialist manifesto and Jeremy Corbyn’s affable personality. But even with a truly appalling performance by Theresa May, that combination wasn’t enough.

What are the odds on a Progressive Alliance now? Are left of centre voters in Scotland willing to hang around within the union and give Labour one more try – maybe in another five years time? The only certain way to get progressive control over taxation, energy policy, trade, EU relations, defence and foreign affairs is to bring them under the control of the Scottish Parliament. And that still means independence.

It might be as unpalatable

right now as a hefty dose of Cod Liver Oil – and yet as conducive to Scotland’s longterm political health. Nicola Sturgeon can put the policy on the back burner over the summer and focus on trying to encourage a new Tory stance on Brexit and recommitting herself to fixing the NHS, education and Scottish social security system.

Meanwhile a few things are true. The SNP is still the leading party at local, Scottish and UK Government level – and the hung parliament at Westminster could give the smaller SNP cohort greater clout than the 56 MPS in 2015.

Scots from left and right have warned the SNP about the need for bold, structur-

al solutions to problems of under-performance within the domestic Scottish realm they control – that’s timely.

I’d guess few folk in Scotland’s new Conservative seats support the Dementia Tax, hard-brexit, privatising the NHS or a trade deal with Donald Trump. It may be hard – even for the redoubtable Ruth Davidson – to keep these voters onside while talk of #scotref recedes and Brexit realities bite. And Jeremy Corbyn now has to assert his brand of socialism on his party. That won’t sit easily with much of Scottish Labour.

So every political party in Scotland faces a rocky road – but maybe that’s what scunnered voters intended.