John Curtice: How the leadership’s passion, confidence and hard work unravelled all on the same day

The SNP must have anticipated there would be a glad and confident air on the first day back at Holyrood after the half-term break.

The SNP must have anticipated there would be a glad and confident air on the first day back at Holyrood after the half-term break.

After all the leadership had been busy during the holidays – agreement reached with the UK government on the terms of an independence referendum and a tricky vote on Nato membership secured.

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What better way to follow this up than finally to unveil with a fanfare the results of its spectacularly successful consultation on how the referendum should be conducted?

Alas, it all unravelled. The passion stirred up by Friday’s Nato debate, hitherto apparently cathartic rather
than corrosive, finally reaped the fruits of division and defection, as two strongly anti-nuclear MSPs decided they could stay with the party no more.

Meanwhile, others on the losing side of the debate are pressing the party leadership to seek a guarantee from Nato that it would accept a condition that Scotland be a nuclear-free member.

They may well discover that, for very different reasons, their opponents on the “No” side now start to press the same cause too.

Not only was the Nato victory too close for comfort on the
day, but it also may not have ensured that the issue is put
to bed for the next two years after all.

Matters were then made worse by the revelation that the Scottish Government has not until now sought the advice of its own lawyers on the key claim that an independent Scotland would be able automatically to assume the mantle of EU membership on the same conditions as the UK currently enjoys.

To have the credibility of one key argument undermined on one day might be thought unfortunate. To be put on the back foot on two could be considered careless.

And without credibility
the “Yes” cause will certainly be lost.

John Curtice is Professor of Politics, Strathclyde University.