Since 2007, the UK has had seven prime ministers (Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and now Sunak), and both Labor and Conservatives have been in power. Meanwhile, in Scotland the SNP has been in continuous control, with absolute or near majorities, and only two leaders, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. A full-fledged monopoly by a centre-left party whose real raison d'être is to gain independence as soon as possible.
But both to the south and to the north of the border, a change of cycle is intuited, more exaggerated in England due to the enormous attrition of the conservatives (twelve years in government) than of the Scottish nationalists (fifteen years in Bute House, the official residence of the premier, and those who remain). In London everything points to a reversal when the next elections are held at the end of 2023. In Edinburgh, the SNP will continue to hold the reins, although probably with a reduced majority, and the great dilemma of how to legally achieve the calling of a new referendum.
The latest poll, carried out after the High Court ruling that prohibits the Holyrood parliament from calling the polls (even in an advisory manner) without the consent of Westminster, shows that support for the SNP (Scottish National Party) has fallen from 45% to 41%, Labor has risen dramatically from 19% to 35% (reflecting Keri Starmer's cleanup of the brand), and from the prospect of seeing it in Downing Street, and the Conservatives are down from 23 % to 16% after the convulsion of the mandates of Johnson and Truss. At the same time, the number of Scots who want a referendum to be held next year, as Strurgeon proposes, is 29%, but those in favor of independence are 49% (three points more than in the previous poll), for a 45% unionists (two points less).
How do you interpret this hodgepodge of data? “The majority say that they would favor independence at this time if there were a consultation, but they do not want it to be held as soon as next year, they prefer to leave it for later, at an indeterminate date, when the multiple crises have been overcome. that afflict the country (economy, health, education, transport, drugs...) -says the political analyst Magnus McDonald-. In other words, slightly more than half of the voters theoretically sympathize with the idea of sovereignty, but two-thirds prefer not to have to make a decision with enormous and largely unforeseeable consequences that they do not even want to consider. Let it continue to be a kind of plan B in the bedroom, an emergency exit.
In power for a decade and a half, with no one to shadow it, the SNP is inevitably held responsible for all the problems, which are very similar to those in England and Wales: the strikes, the littering of the streets, the deterioration of infrastructures, the endless waiting lists in public health and education, doctors who refuse face-to-face consultations, civil servants who work from home online, ambulances that do not arrive, roads and bridges that do not are being built, declining rail services, chronic lack of care for the elderly, inflation, the cost of energy, lack of police presence on the streets, rising drug deaths, unsolved crimes, the deterioration of public finances, non-compliance with environmental objectives, the low number of students from poor families who go to school... Power entails responsibility and a price dude.
A series of scandals over abuse of power and internal divisions - notably over the strategy to win independence - have also eroded the SNP (previous leader Alex Salmond has created his own party, Alba). A trans law project very similar to the one in Spain, which would allow anyone to declare their sex without the need for a medical diagnosis and would lower the "transition age" from 18 to 16 years, meets with great internal opposition, especially from women deputies.
Sturgeon's strategy of turning the next elections into plebiscites is also highly discussed internally, and that a victory with more than 50% of the votes can be considered a mandate to negotiate independence. Not even in the last elections did the SNP obtain such a large majority, nothing would force London and the unionist bloc to accept that approach, and instead a defeat would kill the question of sovereignty for twenty or thirty years.
The differences have caused the fall of the leader of the parliamentary group in Westminster, Ian Blackman. Some accuse the prime minister of preferring romantic failure to gradualism and patience. Where are you going, Scotland?
