Euan McColm: When polls begin to pall, SNP must regain feelgood factor

A government, mid-term, will often appear to be heading for defeat before the reality of an election – and its associated risk of change – sees them back in office.

But the result of a poll showing just 23 per cent support for Scottish independence can’t be brushed off by those campaigning for a Yes vote. It shows the break-up of the UK at its least popular since devolution dawned in 1999.

The findings published last week from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey – with its healthy sample of 1,229 people – are devastating for the SNP and the broader YesScotland campaign. There’s no good news in it and no optimistic spin can distract from that.

How on earth can this have happened? Alex Salmond’s victory in the 2011 Holyrood election was evidence that his charms were working on the Scottish electorate, wasn’t it? To take his party from defeating Labour by a single seat in 2007 to an unprecedented majority four years later was proof that the First Minister’s softly-softly “trust us to govern, then decide” approach was working. And how.

Where’s that progress now? And, more importantly for the pro-independence cause, can Salmond get things back on track?

Perhaps the answer to both lies in the truth of who we Scots are, and what’s really important to us. The SNP’s rise came with a story that described our fine national characteristics, that spoke of our compassion and generosity. Alongside this, and to illustrate just how marvellous we are, came things like the council tax freeze and free prescriptions.

It’s smashing to think that this support for universalism illustrates some shared humanity but, come now, let’s not play the ingenue here. I know what you’re really like.

What the Scottish Government’s giveaways did was appeal to the self-interest of voters. These policies weren’t born of an overwhelming sense of social justice but because the Scottish Nationalists realised that to win elections, a necessary step towards winning independence, they needed to give us attractive things.

The SNP didn’t really advance by telling Scots what we are, but by listening to what we wanted. And what we wanted was something for us and those close to us. Commitments on council tax and prescriptions let them give us things while telling us we cared. These smart policies were free lunches for the collective conscience.

But the independence referendum campaign has a different strategy completely. This time the Nationalists do want to move forward by painting a broader picture of “who we are”. And there’s nothing tangible in that for us. Feeling somehow groovier doesn’t pay bills.

The 23 per cent identified by the survey represents a real hard core whose Yes vote doesn’t depend on mere baubles. All the other people who put Alex Salmond in Bute House, twice? Gone. Not interested. Not just now, anyway.

The SNP needs a rethink. And quickly. There’s been a lot of talk about the tone of the campaign. I’m with those who want it to be positive. But it can be positive and detailed, can’t it?

It might be good for the soul to talk broadly about what we might do, but the rock bottom support for the proposition that we break up the UK suggests that voters want a bit more about what’s in this for them before they’ll think about giving Salmond the result he wants.

This is not passing the SNP leadership by, this weekend. Senior party strategists know that voters respond directly to offers which benefit them personally. They know that, if they’ve to start turning this around, they need to built a story of a bright new Scotland alongside one which says, fairly bluntly, “Oh, and you and your family will get this”.

Expect more detail on welfare proposals soon from the SNP. This was always ground the Nationalists regarded as fertile, but the poor poll figures mean they can’t afford a long preamble. As one of Salmond’s closest confidantes told me, this poll result shows exactly where the Yes campaign must go. And we’d rather, he added, be at 23 per cent now than at the end of January next year. It’s time, then, for the Nationalists to start filling in the gaps if they are to shake up what’s clearly a cautious Scottish electorate.

It’s unfortunate for the SNP that the nature of this campaign doesn’t allow their vision thing to include the possibility of referendum defeat. Alex Salmond wanted a second question about more powers on the ballot paper but lost his nerve in fighting for it. How dearly he must now wish he’d tried.

As one Labour MSP suggested to me, if you offer “more powers”, who’s going to say no? It’s the option that would have let the same voters who vote for council tax freezes while telling themselves they’re social radicals show they’re all about “progress” and “making things better” without having to do anything quite so drastic as tearing up the constitution. (On this issue of more powers, by the way, a Labour MSP provides an instructive anecdote: during regular meetings with constituents, more powers for Holyrood are a frequent demand. But ask what greater powers, specifically, they want and the answers often include things, such as education or roads, over which Holyrood already has complete control.)

There’s something epic about breaking up a country. It’s a huge, world-changing thing. The Yes campaign desperately wanted to give this significant proposition due respect. They wanted to win by building the idea of a Scotland driven forward by shared values. But these poll results – and the SNP’s recent experience – point to the need for a different approach.

“Vote Yes and be a grand better off,” might not have much poetry about it – but with fewer than a quarter of Scots ready to make the break from the UK, it’s exactly the sort of offer the Nationalists will have to make. «

Twitter: @euanmccolm