Most politicians are having a miserable election, but not so Nicola Sturgeon. Her party is terrifying Labour in Scotland, she has put in very strong performances in the TV debates, and whoever is in government in Westminster from May will face trouble from Sturgeon. The forecasters now put the SNP on course to win between 40 and 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats; Scotland is on the cusp of the sharpest change of political direction in her democratic history.
But in order to sustain that momentum to polling day, Sturgeon needs to reassure nervous former ‘no’ voters who are considering voting SNP in order to exert the sort of left-wing pressure on Labour that Sturgeon promises. So today on Marr, she insisted that a vote for the SNP was not a vote for independence, that the circumstances would have to change significantly before another referendum came up.
But the SNP leader did this while pointedly failing to rule out a second referendum. That she has ‘no plans’ for one means very little. Scotland, she says, is already on the road towards a second referendum – and to independence.
“I think Scotland will become an independent country one day, I think that’s the direction of travel. But if there’s to be another referendum firstly there has to be a substantive change in circumstances.”
What could that change be? She didn’t say, but suffice to say that the SNP winning a majority of seats in Scotland is pretty substantive. And then what? She laid out three new staging posts to independence.
Firstly there has to be a substantive change in circumstances. Then people have to vote for a party that is proposing another referendum in a manifesto. Thirdly, people in that referendum would then have to vote for independence.
So will the SNP kick things off by proposing a second referendum in its Holyrood manifesto? Again, she didn’t say.
I haven’t started the process of writing the 2016 manifesto, we’re still fighting the 2015 election. But what I was going on to say is that there’s a democratic lock on this question of a referendum and independence. If there’s ever to be another independence referendum Scottish voters will have to vote for a proposition in a manifesto and have to give a party – presumably the SNP – a majority in Scottish Parliament
So seven months after losing a referendum, the SNP is now sketching out a roadmap to a new one.
Meanwhile, if the Tories do manage to get back into government and the SNP have a majority in Scotland, Sturgeon will spend her time pointing out that Scots didn’t vote for this policy or that policy. Her aim is to create a groundswell of support for independence.
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