Scott Macnab: Indyref2 shift won't change a thing

Nicola Sturgeon's 'climbdown' on a second vote was anything but. Picture: PA

Any idea that Nicola Sturgeon had performed a major climbdown on a second independence referendum was quickly extinguished yesterday by the launch of a new campaign by the SNP to mobilize support for a Yes vote.

The First Minister had barely left her seat in the Scottish Parliament, where she unveiled plans to “reset” her independence dream in a statement to MSPs, when it emerged that the party had set up a new website to help build the case for indyref2.

So if Ms Sturgeon imagined her long-awaited statement to MSPs on her “reflections” about the general election result would be enough to appease pro-union opponents, one can only hope she takes disappointment well.

Opposition leaders went on the offensive immediately, slamming the SNP leader’s lack of humility, contempt for the public and recognition of the election outcome earlier this month which saw the Nationalists lose more than 20 seats.

In a campaign north of the Border dominated by the independence issue, this was widely seen as a rejection of plans for another referendum which were set out the day after the Brexit vote. The fact that the SNP clearly won the election in Scotland with 35 of the country’s 59 seats was overshadowed by the seat losses along with a plunge in vote share from 50 per cent to 37 per cent.

It meant almost two-thirds of Scots backed pro-union parties.

Ms Sturgeon insisted she was listening to the views of Scots, including hundreds of conversations both inside and outside the SNP. This silent majority, she insists, believe that it is “just too soon right now to make a firm decision” about the precise timing of a second referendum. So the Bill to pave the way for a second vote is to be pushed back a bit.

But not for long. It will still be held in the coming years, with Ms Sturgeon herself to make a call on the timing in autumn next year, with the date for a repeat of the 2014 vote to be based on the state of the Brexit negotiations.

It takes a year of Parliamentary procedure and official campaigning before the vote can happen, so it could still conceivably be staged as early as autumn 2019, although a date in mid-2020 seems more likely. Even this shift is largely cosmetic, with the First Minister having already relented on the timescale as she launched her general election manifesto last month, when she accepted it could run beyond the spring 2019 deadline she had previously set out.

The question is to what extent Ms Sturgeon’s shift in position can allow her manage the trickiest of political balancing acts.

She needs to carry wider Scottish public opinion with her on this issue which will be essential if she wants to win a second referendum. At the same time, it is vital that frontline members of the Nationalist movement, including the 100,000-odd new members who signed up to the SNP following the referendum defeat, intent on pushing for independence, remain on board. These are the foot soldiers who will be at the heart of the second drive for a Yes vote.

And will the First Minister come through this process undamaged? However menial the changes to her timescale, the widespread perception is that Ms Sturgeon has been forced into this shift by sheer force of public opinion. The loss of 21 seats in the Commons and about half a million Scottish votes would appear to have spooked the First Minister into this public concession, to put her plans “on hold”, even if she remains adamant that indyref2 is still coming at the conclusion of the Brexit process.

It seems that Ms Sturgeon, who once appeared impervious at the summit of Scottish politics, has made a colossal miscalculation by rushing into her plans for a second referendum on the day after the Brexit vote.

It may have been in the SNP’s manifesto, Scotland being taken out of the EU against its will, but it simply wasn’t in tune with the pubic mood.

A wider problem for SNP strategists is that the party seems to be on the back foot on the independence issue and trying to turnaround this shift in momentum won’t be an easy task.

Perhaps more serious for Ms Sturgeon is that, after ten years in power, the SNP’s domestic record is under increasing scrutiny. The criticism over the referendum plans in the recent election campaign, the so-called “obsessing” about the constitution was happening while schools, hospitals and the economy were being neglected, according to opponents.

The impact on Ms Sturgeon’s own popularity was stark, as polling emerged during the campaign which indicated she is now the most unpopular party leader in Scotland. Almost two-thirds of Scots believe that her “defining mission” was to achieve Scottish independence, compared with just 3 per cent who saw it as education, while 6 per cent believed it was the NHS, according to the YouGov survey commissioned by Labour.

Whisper this among Nationalists, but it really did seem as if Theresa May’s matronly admonition that “Now’s not the time” for another referendum was more in touch with broader Scottish public opinion on the referendum issue than the First Minister’s bullrush into a second vote in the aftermath of last year’s EU referendum outcome.

And of course it’s worth remembering that no matter how loudly Ms Sturgeon demands a second referendum, it needs the approval of the UK government which has control over the constitution and is ruling it out for the duration of this Parliament.

And that’s before Ms Sturgeon faces up to the prospect of making the case for independence a second time around with all the unanswered questions over currency, the economy in the era of $50 a barrel oil and the £15 billion deficit this has left Scotland with.

Will Scots be ready to vote Yes and face up to a future outside the UK as well as the EU, with no guarantee that the Brussels bloc would allow us back in any time soon? As Holyrood prepares to go into recess tomorrow, Ms Sturgeon may have bought herself some summer respite with her “reset” referendum timetable yesterday, but it’s clear that Scots face years of more constitutional wrangling as Brexit and indyref2 continue dominate the political landscape.