2021, the year of living dangerously, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon faces a four year wait minimum if there is a second independence referendum, if things don’t work at the 2021 Holyrood election, if the pro UK hold the balance of power, her position as leader becomes untenable, this could be the biggest failure to deliver in SNP history

Dear All

One of the things that Nicola Sturgeon wants is a quick independence vote as soon as Brexit ends, the reason is quite simple, she knows she is on a clock, can’t win an argument, and thinks that emotional attachment to the EU membership will blind people’s judgement.

Her fear is that Brexit becomes a huge success and she is left politically adrift much like Alex Salmond was, his campaign was a tawdry affair from start to finish, it wasn’t much in terms of substance. The Nationalists presented a sanitised view of a nirvana that they couldn’t deliver, everything will be good and there will be no bad things happening.

The truth of independence is that there will be a lot of bad things happening and those bad things will work their way down in a very real sense to ordinary working class people.

Scotland’s shipbuilding industry heavily depending on UK military warship orders would not be viable without MOD support. No British military warship has in the last 50 years been built outside the UK. During the 2014 referendum, the SNP leadership distorted the truth by claiming that auxillary vessels such as supply ships for the military counted just the same as warships.

They don’t!

It was an untruth which was continuously repeated through-out the campaign by the Nationalists in an attempt to deflect criticism. The SNP would have been responsible for the entire closure more or less of shipbuilding on the Clyde.

Independence comes at a price, nothing is free.  

And of course before any deal is signed, sealed and delivered, Nicola Sturgeon will say that the ‘deal’ is a bad deal regardless of terms. It is now highly likely that Sturgeon’s timetable will just be ignored by Westminster for several reasons; principally the Brexit talks will require their full attention. Brexit although in principle is straightforward, the untangling and timescale is not, it might be tedious, but 40 years of membership cannot be unpicked overnight.

If it can be done in two years, that would be good going but given how the EU operates, the process will be slow because of the legal aspects.

I think many people who watch the political scene know that given the length of time the previous talks and stages took on the 2014, the chances are that any second referendum would have to be pushed right back until 2021. I would say this is probably about right and this tallies with what the House of Lords Library has indicated. The various legal stages of doing through Westminster and then Holyrood all have to be met before the Queen can sign off on a second referendum.

I suppose depending on how well the Scottish Conservatives do and how badly Scottish Labour does in the council elections will to some degree shape advice being given to the Prime Minister. In a nutshell, the Scottish Conservatives would like to have a ‘shot’ at Ruth Davidson becoming First Minister in 2021.

So, well, humm, tick tick tick tick!

That’s a tricky one for the Scottish Conservatives to pull off, although they had a remarkably good Holyrood result; it was down to the collapse of Scottish Labour. The Conservatives played the pro UK card which they wouldn’t have had a chance of doing if Kezia Dugdale hadn’t dropped the ball.

Although Kezia Dugdale has since said she isn’t in favour of a second referendum, is promoting federalism, and a few other bits and pieces, she is still seeing Scottish Labour’s support drop. When a poll showed that the party had hit 14% with the public, donors weren’t supporting the party and few activists are willing to come out.

The Scottish Labour as is doesn’t fit into 21^st Century Scotland, some people reckon that it has had its day, and given defeat after defeat following impending defeat, you have to wonder what can bring them back. What they do know is that they are in major trouble, and haven’t quite worked out that they don’t have a proper narrative. In this election, Scottish Labour is along with others trying to use this as a vehicle to say no to a second independence referendum.

It is the wrong strategy much like Jim Murphy’s fitba nonsense; this election is and should be all about localism, reconnection, empowerment of local groups and public service. After the election, Scottish Labour need to start addressing how to make branches and CLPs better for their members, in effect they have to invest in people beyond elected representatives.

One thing is quite clear, having been unable to invoke the ‘will of the Scottish people’, the SNP are now invoking the ‘will of the Scottish Parliament’, they see this as baby steps to attempt to get the power to call an independence referendum anytime they feel like it. One thing that Westminster must not do is shift from what the reason was for granting the vote last time. Theresa May needs to hold fast and state the franchise will only be granted if the SNP win an outright majority, this was the reason that David Cameron used to grant a section 30 order.

In politics momentum is important, but no one can sustain an independence campaign from 2017 till 2021, especially since we already had a vote in 2014. The political agenda must move on, it is the nature of politics and having Nicola Sturgeon stagnant the country for another 4 years repeating the same old failed arguments will turn people off. Already people are saying they are sick of the SNP, how are they going to feel after another stint of campaigning comes around?

Prime Minister Theresa May was right when she said "now is not the time" to stage a second referendum, at present, this is a time where all parts of the United Kingdom should be coming together in national unity. The SNP have deliberately chosen not to do so for political ends, so it was the correct decision by the UK Government to make it clear it will not even talk about the issue until after the Brexit process is completed.

   

If things pan out as I think they might, the second referendum may end up being led by Scotland in Union as the lead campaign group, in effect, Nicola Sturgeon would be facing a ‘direct democracy’ challenge against either her will of the parliament nonsense or overall SNP mandate. This would make for an interesting contest but you also have the pro UK political parties running their own campaigns with like minded people folding into Scotland in Union.

Scotland in Union would have to do a bit of thinking if they ended up as lead campaign group because they would have to consider bring forward proposals for change and solicit cross party support. There are a lot of balls waiting to be flung up in the air, so someone better have a lot of experience of not dropping them.

As I said to Professor Adam Tomkins in 2014, better archive everything from this campaign because it looks like we will be going again, he replied ‘I hope not, the last one was bad enough’, but as many people know I have an uncanny knack of getting it right.

2021 Holyrood elections are going to be very important in Scottish history.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University