Even by the volatile standards of Scottish politics, Nicola Sturgeon has had a rollercoaster of a week. The first minister was exonerated of misleading the Scottish parliament on Monday, found guilty of the same offence by a parliamentary committee on Tuesday, faced and subsequently defeated a vote of no confidence later the same day, and on Thursday kicked off her campaign in hopes of securing another term in government in the Scottish elections.
Yet in electoral terms at least, Scottish politics is exactly where the first minister wants it to be. She has had a “good pandemic,” winning plaudits—even from those who voted “No” to independence in 2014—for her professionalism and candour. The absence of a smoking gun in the Salmond affair has given her a reprieve, even if the episode has hurt her reputation and the risk of further revelations remains. You wouldn’t bet against her regaining a majority, alone or in coalition, in May. And support for independence remains 15 points higher than before the 2014 referendum campaign began.
This is dangerous territory for the United Kingdom, and for the UK government. The most powerful weapon in the nationalist arsenal is the sense of inevitability. Scottish voters are not, by and large, motivated by constitutional reform: it ranks 12th out of 20 issues in their list of priorities. But if independence seems like a foregone conclusion, Scots may vote to end the uncertainty and move on to other priorities, much like people voted to “get Brexit done” at the 2019 general election. The more salient the issue of independence, the higher support for it will rise.
The task for Unionists is to reverse the ratchet. This is not easy: the SNP’s raison d’être is to disrupt and ultimately dismantle the United Kingdom as we know it. Trying to work with the Scottish government on shared UK priorities can feel like negotiating with a bad faith actor, as the leaks and rows of the last year attest. But dialling down a polarising constitutional debate, and focusing instead on the pandemic and public services, is how the Union will be secured in the short term.
The unspoken truth is that even if Scots increasingly support independence in principle, few want to return to the issue any time soon. Just 35 per cent say they want a referendum to be held within the next two years, marginally less than opt for after 2027 or not at all. Even then, nearly half of Scots think that coronavirus must be completely eliminated and jobs and growth recovered before any vote is held. “Yes” voters agree. This is why the SNP is attempting to put independence on the ballot paper—to confect demand for an early vote.
There is even less appetite for the referendum issue to be forced unilaterally by either side. In Onward’s landmark study of public attitudes towards the Union, State of the Union, we found that a third of Scottish voters say that the SNP holding a unilateral referendum would make them less likely to vote “Yes.” But roughly the same amount say that they would be more likely to back independence if the UK government refuses a vote outright. It seems that Scottish voters just want their two governments to agree a way forward.
This is true for other issues. When you offer Scottish voters a forced choice between the status quo or independence, they say that almost every policy area (exceptions include foreign affairs and vaccine supplies) would be better handled in an independent Scotland. But when you introduce a third option—the Scottish and UK governments working more effectively together in a reformed UK—voters choose partnership over partisanship for every single issue, including in policy areas like education which have been Scottish-controlled since the Act of Union of 1707.
In fact, of all people in the UK, Scottish voters are most likely to agree with the idea that “Scotland has done better as part of the Union than it would have done as an independent country in the last 20 years.” 46 per cent of all Scottish voters, and 28 per cent of “Yes” voters, agree that since devolution, Scotland has got more out of the UK than it would have achieved alone. This is instructive: the functional benefits of the Union are not in doubt.
Instead it is culture that is driving Scots apart. Fewer than half of Scots now see themselves as equally Scottish and British, whereas three quarters of English voters identify with their home nation and the United Kingdom in equal measure. 75 per cent of “Yes” voters feel strongly Scottish but just 15 per cent feel strongly British. The progressive values that Scots want Scotland to embody—being “welcoming,” “open-minded” and “fair”— are very different from the values they associate with remaining in the UK, where words like “conservative,” “safe” and “wealthy” dominate.
This is where ministers need to focus their energy. Not by preaching to Scotland about the risks of independence or plastering the Union Flag on every public building and announcement—tactics that will only serve to rally Scots around the Saltire—but by visibly pursuing shared values and priorities, especially as we emerge from coronavirus, and acting in the spirit of partnership rather than competition. Only then will support for independence start to subside, and the first minister be bumped from her pedestal.
