A decade on, Scottish independence appears more improbable than ever

By proving itself utterly inept in government, the SNP has fatally wounded the Nationalist cause

This Wednesday is the anniversary of that great day exactly 10 years ago when my fellow Scots kept their heads and said “No” to the potentially disastrous plan by Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon to break up Britain and end the 307-year-old Union with England.
Those intimately involved with the battle to stop them thought that the almost 11 per cent margin in that independence referendum was a decent win. But, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe it was a wee bit too close for comfort – or, as Wellington reportedly said as he surveyed the carnage of the Waterloo battlefield: “It was a damn close-run thing.”
However, is such a result at all likely, or might it be reversed, if there is another vote? Personally, I doubt it very much. In charge of Scotland since 2007, the SNP has shown itself to be entirely short of the necessary skills to run a devolved parliament – with a huge array of powers – so what chance does it have of running an independent country?
The author Irvine Welsh reckons it was a disaster that the separatists lost, but surely the real disaster would have been an independent Scotland whose economy was entirely dependent on volatile oil and gas revenues in a world hell bent on achieving Net Zero targets? And while Welsh blethers on about nightclubs and people having fun in city-centre streets, he appears to be quieter on the things that really matter – like schools, hospitals, and the economy.
Furthermore, “real” Scots – those who value democracy – don’t agree with him, either, as a glance both at the 2014 voting figures and at the hammering the SNP received at the general election this July make clear. We don’t really need a crystal ball to see what sort of country an independent Scotland would be; after all, the current bunch of nationalist leaders would surely still be in charge.
We’ve had a glimpse of what it would have been like with an economy where much of the money’s been spent on generous public sector pay rises and a policy portfolio that looks to have come straight from a book of fairy stories.
And how could Scotland on its own run any kind of economy without a separate currency? Or would it keep sterling? All the questions that caused Salmond to lose 10 years ago are still valid and still haven’t been answered. The nationalists would be roundly defeated in any new vote and they know it, given that we hardly hear anything now about “IndyRef2”.
With almost every pronouncement their government is found wanting. The SNP’s once triumphant leader, Nicola Sturgeon, is still under investigation by Police Scotland over the missing £600,000 from the party’s coffers. She has denied any wrong-doing but her husband Peter Murrell has been charged in connection with the loss. A three-year police inquiry has still not concluded.
Sturgeon’s radical trans policy was unpopular and unworkable; the agreement Sturgeon negotiated with the Scottish Greens ended in disaster.
Scotland has achieved worldwide notoriety in one respect – topping the international league table for drug deaths. And why should we believe that this wouldn’t be the case after independence, given drug policy and law and order are both entirely the responsibility of the Scottish Government, which has been controlled by the SNP since 2007?
It is the same sorry tale in education, health and in the provision of much-needed ferries for some island communities, where again the SNP has full control.
The record of the nationalists has been appalling since 2014. There’s been an open war between Salmond and Sturgeon, with charges of sexual harassment against Salmond – on all of which he was acquitted – prompting him to complain of a “conspiracy” orchestrated by Sturgeon, which she in turn has denied.
The hammering delivered to the SNP in July, when they lost 38 seats, may well be a harbinger for what happens in the next Scottish Parliament election, due in 2026. Yes, there are still votes out there for the SNP as a party, but I cannot see any kind of revival in support for independence. Whatever glamour it once had has long faded.
Scottish Labour must be favourites to win the 2026 Holyrood election, pushing the SNP into second place after what would be a mammoth 19-year-long run in power.
Sturgeon said the 2014 poll was a “once in a lifetime” event – not once in a generation, as is frequently reported – and as a result, many nationalists look back on that 2014 referendum through rose-tinted glasses. They insist that their campaign then was one of joy and enthusiasm where happy smiling people worked hard for their country and that they were robbed of victory by “Unionist lies”. But the biggest “fib” was surely Salmond’s promises of a massive dividend for all Scots from North Sea oil and gas revenues, even as it was obvious that such revenues were dwindling.
The battle was anything but joyous. The nationalists knew this was their only chance of succeeding and we saw a bitter, desperate, even corrosive fight – with so-called “cybernats” pouring online vitriol on every Scot who dared to oppose them.
Thankfully, they were opposed by the person who more than any other won the battle to keep Scotland in the UK: the late Alistair Darling, who accepted then prime minister David Cameron’s invitation to head the all-party Better Together campaign. He doubted the early opinion polls that suggested it would be an easy victory for the opponents of a Scottish breakaway.
“It’s going to be too close to call,” Darling insisted at one point. And so it proved, thanks to a healthy SNP war chest and a question loaded in favour of the separatists. It read: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”
But Darling forged an unlikely and at times rocky alliance among normally deadly enemies in the Labour, Tory and Lib Dem ranks. And although hampered at times by unwanted “advice” from Whitehall and difficulties with a stand-offish Gordon Brown, who didn’t like mixing with Tories, it worked.
The nationalists lost their chance to break up Britain 10 years ago and it’s probably the only one they’ll get. That might make Mr Welsh unhappy but a great many Scots will pour themselves a dram this week, to celebrate this significant anniversary.