Analysis: This was not a speech from a First Minister expecting a referendum next year

There is a sense this was a speech from a First Minister who perhaps does not completely believe her own words.

Indeed some SNP members must have left the P&J Arena in Aberdeen wondering what on earth had been the point of the exercise.

Yes, there was the usual rhetorical flourish on independence and the bogeyman of Westminster from all of the main, senior SNP figures.

But policy? I’d be surprised if you needed more than one hand to count them.

Doubling a bridging payment for the poorest is a classic Sturgeon intervention.

Easy, relatively cheap, and ensures a positive headline from the conference.

However, the flagship policy of the speech, the £20bn investment fund based on oil revenues and – tantalisingly undefined – borrowing, is simply a rehash of similar plans in both the 2014 White Paper and the 2018 Scottish Growth Commission.

Hardly much for the hardcore or undecided on independence to get excited by.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivers her keynote speech during the SNP conference at The Event Complex Aberdeen (TECA) in Aberdeen , Scotland.

There is a confidence, bordering on arrogance, about the party’s blasé approach to Scottish domestic policy too.

Committing your party to £3.6bn in unfunded tax cuts is the sort of thing Tory governments get significant criticism for, yet that was passed without opposition on the conference floor.

One curious, pedantic side note was the wording around a ‘de facto’ referendum, promised by the First Minister should the Supreme Court – as expected – rule against the Scottish Government.

The test of the case for independence will not be put at the next general election, but at “an election”.

This leaves open the possibility of it being pushed yet further back in the SNP’s grand plan and potentially to the 2026 Holyrood election.

It is a sign, perhaps, of a softening on the unpopular proposal among the public and follows Labour’s resurgence in the polls.

This was not a conference of a party or a speech from a leader that is set to fight an independence referendum next October.

It and the First Minister knows they will likely lose that fight (and what a panic they will be in if they win that court battle).

Nicola Sturgeon knows she is marching her supporters up the independence hill once again without any guarantees a vote will be held any time soon.

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