Hamish Macdonell: Last desperate throw of the dice

Published on Sunday 5 September 2010 18:57

IT IS unlikely that any decision Alex Salmond has taken as First Minister hurt as much as the expected ditching of his plans to get a bill through this parliament paving the way for a referendum on independence.

But it is what happens now that is key, both in terms of the prospect of Scotland of getting a referendum and as far as the SNP's own electoral chances are concerned.

Both these issues are intertwined. If the SNP wins next year's election, then the prospect of a referendum on independence will come closer than ever before.

But if the Nationalists lose and are consigned to opposition, then the chances of an independence referendum, at least for the foreseeable future, will all but disappear.

As a result, next year's election is now absolutely crucial for the Nationalist movement. Mr Salmond needed something to elevate his party's standing and take Labour on in the campaign because, as things stand, opinion polls indicate Labour is on course to win.

Therefore, the decision to drop the referendum in the parliament and appeal directly to the people is a last, desperate gamble by the SNP leadership.

Mr Salmond has gone for broke. He has decided to turn the next election into a pseudo referendum on independence, and that is what he has done.

But unless something extraordinary happens in the next six months to shift public opinion in favour of independence, it is just not going to work.

The SNP won 32 per cent of the vote in 2007 but a sizeable number of these voters were won over by the party's message that a vote for the SNP was not necessarily a vote for independence.

Indeed, this was Mr Salmond's core message. "Vote for us," he said, "And we shall show you we can govern before moving on to independence."

But if the SNP goes into next year's campaign saying a vote for the SNP is a vote for independence, it will not only have reversed its message from 2007, but it will have succeeded in frightening away the very voters it needed to win last time.

Mr Salmond is a gambler, but this time he really has put his shirt on an outsider. He may win through and confound all the pundits, commentators and his political opponents: outsiders sometimes do come through, after all.

But all the evidence at the moment suggests that the odds are too steep for success, even for a politician as sharp, savvy and astute as Mr Salmond.