Stubborn Scotland went its own way on Thursday night, witnessing a Tory revival (even as the party lost its Commons majority), a smaller than average Jeremy Corbyn bounce and Scottish National party losses while opposition parties elsewhere gained seats.

It was the Scottish Tories’ best result since 1983, a recovery of sorts for humbled Scottish Labour and a night of consolation for Liberal Democrats – clawing back four of their traditional Scottish seats. But although the SNP lost 21 MPs, including former leader Alex Salmond and Westminster leader Angus Robertson, it still won its second biggest tally, with more seats than all unionist opponents combined. On share of the vote though, the result was far closer.

So what happened?

The popular view is that the SNP hit a near perfect storm as Brexit-supporting yes voters abandoned the party in the fishing and farming communities of Aberdeenshire, the two-party race developing across the rest of the UK encouraged a return to pre-2015 Westminster voting patterns, and the SNP was punished for demanding a second independence referendum (#scotref) while health and education outcomes have faltered.

Unquestionably, the scotref demand did rile many union supporters – though opinion polls suggest most voters do want a final Scottish vote on the Brexit deal and such an explanation does confirm the primacy of the constitutional question in Scottish politics.

But was it Nicola Sturgeon’s scotref strategy or her failure to actively campaign for it that lost the SNP seats?

In truth there was a range of issues in the mix last night.

After the 2014 independence referendum, yes voters shifted immediately and en masse to join and enthusiastically back the SNP in the 2015 general election. They were joined by some no voters who felt the SNP had produced an effective Scottish government that could extract the best devolution deal – safe in the knowledge that electing a raft of SNP MPs wouldn’t be a mandate for another independence vote. But that was before the European referendum and the Brexit vote, which demonstrated a profound difference in attitudes to EU membership north and south of the border.

That, in turn, led to the Scottish government’s determination to find a different deal for Scotland. When Theresa May finally rejected that bid, Sturgeon put a second independence referendum back on the table as being the only way Scots could have the chance to vote their way out of Brexit – fully expecting she had two years to build her case while May stumbled deeper into the mire of Brexit.

But no one could have bargained for the prime minister’s decision to call a snap election, propelling the SNP into making the case for independence as an alternative to Brexit – a case it was not ready to make. Last year, the SNP set up a growth commission headed by former SNP MSP and economist Andrew Wilson, charged with producing a new economic strategy for independence that would resolve the vexed issues of currency and oil revenue volatility. That commission has yet to report. Public polls showed no post-Brexit independence surge, and private polling showed that even yes voters were nervous about yet another vote after local, Scottish and UK elections and European and independence referendums.

Sturgeon decided not to be rushed prematurely into making the case for a second independence vote – but her unionist rivals made opposition the main plank of their local and general election campaigns, which put her in the unusual position of looking like a woman on the back foot.

Unquestionably, Corbyn’s unpredicted late surge pulled some ex-Labour voters back from the ranks of the SNP – a tad ironic since Kezia Dugdale supported Owen Smith in last year’s leadership contest and predicted Corbyn would leave Labour “carping on the sidelines” if elected. It seems radical Corbyn allowed Dugdale to shine, while wooden May probably stopped Ruth Davidson from doing even better.

So where does that leave Scottish politics?

The SNP is still the leading party at local, Scottish and UK government level – and the hung parliament at Westminster could give the new, smaller SNP cohort greater clout than the 56 MPs sent to London in 2015.

There may be no immediate prospect of a progressive alliance, the once ubiquitously popular Sturgeon may have lost some of her shine, and the campaign for a second referendum is becalmed – for the time being.

But the issues underlying the 2017 general election are not resolved. And anyone predicting peak SNP or peak independence is still likely to be sorely disappointed.