Unsettled will: 10 years on from the referendum, where now for independence

The 2014 independence referendum was the vote which was supposed to settle Scotland's constitutional future once and for all. Except, it didn't.

What had been billed as a 'once in a generation' determination of the will of the Scottish people was nothing of the sort.

The idea of 'losers consent' - whoever lost would accept the result and work in the common interests of the country - quickly evaporated, if it had ever really existed.

For this was a referendum which threw up a political paradox: in the decade that followed the victors became the vanquished, the vanquished the victors.

The winners lost, the losers won.

As Times columnist, and Representing Border commentator, Alex Massie, put it recently: "The referendum answered a question without settling it."

The immediate answer to the question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" was 45 per cent 'yes' and 55 per cent 'no'.  

Not close by comparison to the Brexit referendum which followed, but much closer than supporters of Scotland remaining in the UK had expected.

Nationalists who had convinced themselves their life-long dream was about to be realised were devastated, in a state of shock bordering on denial.

For the most part Unionists were relieved, rather than triumphalist, but any hopes that 18 September 2014 would put an end to the constitutional debate were quickly dashed.

In the UK election of May the following year the SNP, led by Nicola Sturgeon (who succeeded Alex Salmond) came close to wiping out the Unionist parties in Scotland.

The SNP, the referendum losers, emerged the winners taking an astonishing 56 out of the 59 seats in Scotland at Westminster with Labour (down 40), the Tories and the Lib Dems left with just one constituency each.

The SNP even took two seats in the south of Scotland, where there had been a substantial vote against independence in the referendum, though David Mundell hung on as the only Scottish Tory MP 

Nicola Sturgeon had become the rock star First Minister, packing out huge venues like Glasgow's Hydro, with an independence message. It was as if the referendum was still to come, not in the past.

The decade that followed the referendum was dominated by the SNP. 

Although they lost seats in the 2015 UK election, a setback for Ms Sturgeon, they bounced back in the 2017 poll, which strengthened that nationalists political position again.

In terms of the Scottish parliament, they lost their overall Holyrood majority in 2016 and were just one short of a majority in 2021. But in all that time they remained in government.

And they kept talking about independence, claiming their wins in these elections proved they had a mandate to go to the Scottish people once again, a claim disputed by their opponents.

After the Brexit referendum in which the majority in Scotland voted to remain, Ms Sturgeon claimed it was a turning point for the independence debate. Denying Scots the right to choose would be a democratic outrage, she argued.

Outrage or not - that depends on your point of view - subsequent UK governments continued to say a firm 'no', or in Theresa May's phrasing 'now is not the time'.

And as we now know from a Supreme Court judgement the power over to hold a referendum does lie ultimately with Westminster, though nationalists say sovereignty lies with the Scottish people.

But the power residing at Westminster, is the legal and political reality, which the SNP has had to try to deal with.

The First Minister eventually had to back away from her post-Brexit referendum demand, a sign of things to come.

Nothing is forever in politics. The rock star aura around Ms Sturgeon faded. Harsh reality reasserted itself. There were problems in health, education, building ferries to name a few - all areas of Scottish government responsibility.

Even though she was judged to have had a 'good war' in the battle against Covid, certainly by comparison to Boris Johnson, we know outcomes north of the Border were not very much different from those south of it.

On top of all of that there was the Alex Salmond court case, and the subsequent complete breakdown of relations between him and Ms Sturgeon to whom he had been a mentor. 

There were also bitter and divisive public debates over contentious issues like gender reform under Ms Sturgeon’s term of office, which took up a lot of her time and used up political capital. Uneasy lies the head which wears the crown.

Ms Sturgeon was in office nearly a decade, remarkable in itself, but she did not see her goal of a second referendum realised let alone achieving an independence majority. Neither did her short-lived successor, Humza Yousaf.

So with Labour finally reasserting itself in Scotland after the recent UK election - going from one seat to 37, the SNP down 39 to just nine - what are the prospects for another vote on the constitutional future any time soon?

Realpolitik suggests for the foreseeable future the answer to that question ranges from unlikely to non-existent.

With Labour's huge majority in the Commons and the party hoping to continue its revival in the 2026 Holyrood elections, as things stand there is simply no way Sir Keir Starmer’s government will consent to indyref2.

Privately senior SNP figures accept this though they can point to the fact that white their party support might be declining polls still suggest there is strong support for independence - another post-referendum paradox. And that gives them some hope.

As does the fact that polls also suggest a majority of younger people support Scotland leaving the UK. They are the future, the SNP and its new leader and First Minister John Swinney say. It's only a matter of time, they and he hope.

Well, it might be, but then again it might not. Who is to say these young people might not change their minds as they get older? 

It is a truism to say Nationalists will never stop believing Scotland should be an independent country. Of course they won't. 

The question for the next decade is whether they can regain the momentum the ‘Yes’ movement once had? 

Some in the SNP are even thinking the unthinkable: that it might be better to regroup and reassess from the opposition benches at Holyrood, unencumbered by the responsibilities of office.

In all of this the way the new UK administration under Labour governs in relation to Scotland and what it does or does not deliver will be crucial. 

It’s about both tone, showing respect for the devolved government, but also about delivery. Can Labour demonstrate the Union, being in the UK, delivers material benefits to Scots?

The late Labour leader John Smith once said devolution was the "settled will of the Scottish people". We've come a long way since then. 

Now all we can say is the will of the Scots is unsettled. And that is unsettling for politicians - of all persuasions.

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