2026 could be the last chance saloon for independence

There was the usual flurry of outrage from the usual suspects in the comments section of an article in the Sunday edition of The National which reported that the SNP leadership does not intend to use the recent positive opinion poll putting support for independence on 54% in order to press for an immediate independence referendum. Apparently this ‘proves’ that the SNP is really a Unionist party which is only pretending to be in favour of independence, who knows why, possibly because they are actually masochists who get off on the abuse and unfavourable treatment meted out to them by the BBC and the anti-independence press. Oops, by writing that I’ve probably gone and created a new conspiracy theory that will be put all over Twitter by the same people who assert that Nicola Sturgeon is simultaneously a misogynist and a lesbian.

However, much as I and most of the readers of this blog would like Scottish independence tomorrow, this was just one opinion poll, and as favourable as it was we need other polls confirming that there has indeed been an increase in support for independence and that it is sustained and real before we can realistically expect to see political action being taken on the back of opinion polling. One poll can easily be a rogue or an outlier, remember the poll a few months before last summer’s Westminster general election which showed the SNP on course to win 40 Commons seats. It’s a fool’s errand only to pay attention to those polls which give us the outcome we want and ignore all other evidence. One good poll does not a victory make.

The signs are that the Scottish budget has been received very well by the public, which likes to see the SNP and the Scottish Government doing the things that the Labour party in Scotland promised it supported but which it takes no action on. The SNP is correct to continue to build on this success and to demonstrate to the people of Scotland that it will do its utmost to protect them from a Westminster which has been irretrievably captured by big business and corporate interests. This was confirmed again today with the news that the Labour government has agreed to the sale of Royal Mail to Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský. What were once public assets have been comprehensively captured by oligarchs, and the Labour party facilitates it.

Naturally Anas Sarwar is refusing to blame Keir Starmer for the collapse in support for the Labour party in Scotland and the increasing likelihood that Sarwar will be condemned to doing his sneery face in opposition in the next Scottish Parliament. It’s more than his job is worth to criticise the Supreme Leader in public. He’d be Richard Leonarded, turfed out of his position as branch manager and consigned to the back benches with the other Labour MSPs that no one ever hears of, like Richard Leonard.

The fate of Richard Leonard illustrates the true status of the Labour party in Scotland. If “Scottish Labour” really was an autonomous party, as Sarwar repeatedly claims, then Richard Leonard would be its leader and would not have been ousted by Starmer and the über-Unionist wing of the Labour party in Scotland for having the temerity to support Jeremy Corbyn and genuinely left wing policies.

The signs are that the people of Scotland are seeing through Starmer’s con trick and are coming to realise that the genuine political change which is so badly needed is not possible in a UK context.

Let’s be positive and assume that this poll is not an outlier or a rogue poll and that the inevitable disappointment with Keir Starmer and his failure to deliver the change that he promised repeatedly combined with the very real and alarming prospect that at the next Westminster general election we could end up with a far right English nationalist government of Nigel Farage and or a Conservative party which has swallowed his lies and toxicity wholesale, really is translating into an increase in support for independence. These factors will surely cause people in Scotland to come to realise that the only hope of escape from the political and economic domination of the wealthy, the theft of Scotland’s natural resources, and the continuing privatisation and devastation of public services lies with Scottish independence.

The threat of the rise of hard right English populist nationalism poses an existential threat to traditional concepts of the structure of the United Kingdom, although the idea of the UK as a voluntary union has been given nothing but lip service by the mainstream British parties. Kemi Badenoch, the new leader of the Conservative party, has gone so far as to deny that the UK in in fact a voluntary union. Appearing on BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show in October, Badenoch vowed to ‘fix’ devolution, by which she meant fix in the sense that you fix a dog when a vet castrates it.

The Tory leader told presenter Martin Geissler that a voluntary union was not “one where everybody can rush out at a particular point”. She stressed that she was opposed to there being another independence referendum and added that the question of the Union was one for people in all four nations of the UK, implying that Scots could only get another independence referendum if England’s political representatives agree.

Reform UK are remarkably light on Scottish policies, as befits a nakedly English nationalist party for which Scotland is at best an afterthought, but it’s probably safe to assume that Reform UK would espouse a similar formulation of the nature of the UK as Badenoch. An English nationalist party is not going to surrender control to Scotland. Indeed it’s entirely plausible that Reform UK would seek to defend the territorial integrity of the UK by outlawing, or at least putting strong restrictions upon, groups and parties seeking to “break up the UK.” That would be very much on brand for them. They would also take steps to all but prohibit campaigning for climate justice and against companies and measures which contribute to the climate emergency. The only protests which are permitted in the UK in the 21st century are those which protest against threats to inherited wealth and entrenched privilege.

The 2026 Holyrood elections could be the last chance saloon for the Scottish independence movement as it is currently conceived. If the pro-independence parties fail to secure a majority, we may never get another chance with the malignant presence of Farage waiting in the wings. That’s why it is imperative for the SNP and the other pro-independence parties to ensure that independence supporters are strongly motivated to turn out and vote. The next Scottish elections must be a de facto referendum on independence and on Scottish control of Scotland’s vast renewable energy resources. In the meantime the Scottish Government and the SNP must continue the work of introducing and implementing policies which tackle poverty and inequality and which draw a sharp line between Holyrood and the corporate centrism of Labour at Westminster.

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