At first it seemed like a simple empath after the fartanera of sixteen consecutive years in power, the stomach turned, vomiting, the usual. Then it became more like one of those respiratory viruses that are in the air, a full-blown flu or equivalent, with the need to go to the doctor and take antibiotics. Now, it turns out that the disease of the SNP (Scottish National Party) could be more serious. And despite the fact that the patient's life is not at all in danger, everything points to a long convalescence and the need for physiotherapy and rehabilitation.
Although support for independence remains firm at around 50% of the electorate, the problem for the SNP is that the pro-independence voter is in no rush to break with the rest of the UK, let alone given that the constitutional path to achieve the goal is blocked since there was the detachment of land from a Supreme Court ruling that ratified the authority of Westminster to simply say no. In the absence of a viable alternative route, he seems to settle for the more modest, but also relevant, goal of getting over the hated Tories.
With a monopoly on Scottish political representation for a decade and a half, both at regional level (Holyrood) and in the House of Commons, the SNP currently has 44 seats in Westminster, 6 for the Conservatives and just 2 for Labour. Labor was the country's alpha party, given its collectivist spirit (it is much more social democratic than England), but its supporters asked Tony Blair for a divorce because of his centrism and the Iraq war. The next elections are presented as a turning point, with its return as a dominant force.
The latest poll suggests a tie between the SNP and Labor with 35% support, to 17% of the Conservatives, which would result in the loss of half or more of the 44 nationalist seats. It is not that unionism has increased, or support for independence has decreased, but that a large percentage of pro-independence people are engaged, angry, bored, disappointed, fed up or furious to varying degrees, and ready to vote for the Labor leader Keir Starmer to get rid of the Tories, hugely unpopular in Scotland since the days of Thatcher.
Humza Yousaf, Nicola Sturgeon's successor at the head of the SNP, poses the next election as a matter of life or death for independence. "If we don't get the majority of seats - he says - the journey will be over for a long time, the only way to achieve prosperity and improve the standard of living of the Scots is to be independent and be part of the US".
But what started as a cold or a cold has turned into a fever of forty. The police continue to investigate the disappearance of 750,000 euros of donations to the SNP that, instead of being allocated to independence, were dedicated to electoral campaigns, a situation that resulted in Sturgeon's resignation. At best, it will be an accounting error and a management error. At worst, a criminal act with criminal responsibilities to be distributed right and wrong.
In order to be discharged and leave the hospital, the SNP faces several problems. The first is the loss of its image of competition with the considerable deterioration of public services (health, education...), the increase in drug consumption, the reduction of life expectancy. The second is that, at the same time, Labor has developed a reputation for competition under Starmer, and the mere fact that he is emerging as a likely winner generates additional support for him. The third is the lack of a strategy for independence, which is its raison d'etre, until Westminster clears the stones in the way of a new referendum (and has no intention of bringing in the bulldozers to -ho). The fourth is that voters' biggest concerns now are inflation and the cost of living. And the icing on the cake is the specter of the investigation into party funding.
The voters who plan to switch to Labor are, on the one hand, young people who have grown up in the SNP's era of electoral dominance with Alex Salmond and Sturgeon, concerned about poverty and the environmental crisis, and on the other, nationalists lifelong veterans who, as the road is blocked, don't care to hang around until later resuming the route to independence, and realizing the dream of Scotland occupying a seat in the United Nations between Arabia Saudi Arabia and Senegal. They believe that this is the destiny of the country, but for the moment it is enough to dethrone the Tories.
