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| The Scottish Nationalists take the sly road to independence | The Scottish Nationalists take the sly road to independence |
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| The blue backdrop to the platform swirls with a giant flag. The conference slogan has the word “STRONGER” in a super-size font that punches you in the back of the eyeballs. And when she comes on stage, there is mass adulation for the woman who leads the party. When I arrived at the SNP conference in Aberdeen, a colleague in the Scottish media shook my hand with the wry greeting: “Welcome to North Korea.” I was more reminded of Tory conferences in the mid-1980s when Margaret Thatcher was at her zenith. The choreographed displays of adoration for the leader. The absence of visible dissent. The party conference not as a forum for meaningful debate but as a triumphalist rally. | The blue backdrop to the platform swirls with a giant flag. The conference slogan has the word “STRONGER” in a super-size font that punches you in the back of the eyeballs. And when she comes on stage, there is mass adulation for the woman who leads the party. When I arrived at the SNP conference in Aberdeen, a colleague in the Scottish media shook my hand with the wry greeting: “Welcome to North Korea.” I was more reminded of Tory conferences in the mid-1980s when Margaret Thatcher was at her zenith. The choreographed displays of adoration for the leader. The absence of visible dissent. The party conference not as a forum for meaningful debate but as a triumphalist rally. |
| Nationalists have rather a lot to be triumphalist about. They lost the referendum 12 months ago, but they have since won everything else. Their leader is popular with both a party that has ballooned in size and a wider Scottish public that looks on her very favourably. They eviscerated all their rivals north of the Tweed at the general election and the polls are pointing to another stonking victory in next May’s elections to the Holyrood parliament and an increase in their governing majority. This despite growing scrutiny of their eight-year record in power in Edinburgh and a lengthening list of negatives on the balance sheet. | Nationalists have rather a lot to be triumphalist about. They lost the referendum 12 months ago, but they have since won everything else. Their leader is popular with both a party that has ballooned in size and a wider Scottish public that looks on her very favourably. They eviscerated all their rivals north of the Tweed at the general election and the polls are pointing to another stonking victory in next May’s elections to the Holyrood parliament and an increase in their governing majority. This despite growing scrutiny of their eight-year record in power in Edinburgh and a lengthening list of negatives on the balance sheet. |
| One of their MPs has recently been forced to resign the party whip, an illustration that the SNP, for all its tendency to sanctimony, is no more saintly than any other party. Yet none of this seems to stick to the SNP. It certainly does not stick hard enough to loosen their hold on Scottish public opinion and their dominance of the country’s politics. | One of their MPs has recently been forced to resign the party whip, an illustration that the SNP, for all its tendency to sanctimony, is no more saintly than any other party. Yet none of this seems to stick to the SNP. It certainly does not stick hard enough to loosen their hold on Scottish public opinion and their dominance of the country’s politics. |
| Rivals also envy their ability to project a face of smooth unity to the world, a discipline that both the Tories and Labour once had and that both have lost. Get below the surface and splits are there. Divisions over philosophy, strategy and personality. But they are well hidden from public view by the binding agent that glues them all together: the pursuit of the overarching goal of independence. | Rivals also envy their ability to project a face of smooth unity to the world, a discipline that both the Tories and Labour once had and that both have lost. Get below the surface and splits are there. Divisions over philosophy, strategy and personality. But they are well hidden from public view by the binding agent that glues them all together: the pursuit of the overarching goal of independence. |
| The comparison with North Korea made by my Scottish friend was a little unfair because it suggested that there was no dissent at the conference because it had been ruthlessly suppressed. My impression was that there was not much dissent because few folk wanted to express any. There was some argument over land reform and fracking, but it would be a great exaggeration to say that these debates left the conference floor drenched with blood. When occasional voices did surface to protest against a motion it was usually in a very restrained form. A speaker in the debate reaffirming the SNP’s opposition to the renewal of Trident told the conference: “I’m not against our policy. I just think it doesn’t go far enough.” No one in my hearing even raised a complaint when a debate on public health was infused with the noxious aroma of fried fat drifting in from the food outlets next door to the conference hall. | The comparison with North Korea made by my Scottish friend was a little unfair because it suggested that there was no dissent at the conference because it had been ruthlessly suppressed. My impression was that there was not much dissent because few folk wanted to express any. There was some argument over land reform and fracking, but it would be a great exaggeration to say that these debates left the conference floor drenched with blood. When occasional voices did surface to protest against a motion it was usually in a very restrained form. A speaker in the debate reaffirming the SNP’s opposition to the renewal of Trident told the conference: “I’m not against our policy. I just think it doesn’t go far enough.” No one in my hearing even raised a complaint when a debate on public health was infused with the noxious aroma of fried fat drifting in from the food outlets next door to the conference hall. |
| The motions for debate came in two forms. Those about the SNP were self-congratulatory about the party’s record in government. Those about the UK government condemned the terrible Tories. “The resolution is passed unanimously,” was a frequent refrain from the chair. Under Nicola Sturgeon, as under Alex Salmond, the Nationalists continue to be brilliant at having it both ways: claiming any success as their own while directing the blame for any failure to wicked Westminster. | The motions for debate came in two forms. Those about the SNP were self-congratulatory about the party’s record in government. Those about the UK government condemned the terrible Tories. “The resolution is passed unanimously,” was a frequent refrain from the chair. Under Nicola Sturgeon, as under Alex Salmond, the Nationalists continue to be brilliant at having it both ways: claiming any success as their own while directing the blame for any failure to wicked Westminster. |
| At some point, the contradictions will be exposed. The laws of political gravity will kick in again. The Nationalists’ record will catch up with them. Nicolamania will go the way of other political frenzies. That is what their rivals hope. That is what some more sober-minded Nationalists secretly fear. But there is little sign of that happening soon. | At some point, the contradictions will be exposed. The laws of political gravity will kick in again. The Nationalists’ record will catch up with them. Nicolamania will go the way of other political frenzies. That is what their rivals hope. That is what some more sober-minded Nationalists secretly fear. But there is little sign of that happening soon. |
| The Tories north of the border have a vigorous leader in Ruth Davidson, but the most that Conservatives can say about their strategy for revival is that it is “long term”. The Lib Dems are in a wretched state. The arrival of Jeremy Corbyn did initially trouble a few of the SNP’s strategists, worried that he might woo back some of the voters they have taken from Labour. But they now sound not only relaxed but positively pleased that he is Labour’s leader. I have always thought it a mistake to think that the way back for Labour in Scotland was simply to try to outbid the SNP for leftwing votes. The rise of the Nationalists is much more complicated than that and can never be understood without appreciating the magnetic power of the politics of identity. All their competitors will flounder until they can start loosening the SNP’s potent grip on the claim to be “Stronger For Scotland”. The latest polling finds no evidence of a Corbyn effect lifting Labour north of the border. If anything, Labour’s position could be becoming even more dire. The starkness of the divisions between the leader and his parliamentary party is a gift that keeps on giving to the SNP. The terrible mess the Labour leadership got into over its posture on the fiscal charter has been a great help to the Nationalists in nimbly reframing their narrative. | The Tories north of the border have a vigorous leader in Ruth Davidson, but the most that Conservatives can say about their strategy for revival is that it is “long term”. The Lib Dems are in a wretched state. The arrival of Jeremy Corbyn did initially trouble a few of the SNP’s strategists, worried that he might woo back some of the voters they have taken from Labour. But they now sound not only relaxed but positively pleased that he is Labour’s leader. I have always thought it a mistake to think that the way back for Labour in Scotland was simply to try to outbid the SNP for leftwing votes. The rise of the Nationalists is much more complicated than that and can never be understood without appreciating the magnetic power of the politics of identity. All their competitors will flounder until they can start loosening the SNP’s potent grip on the claim to be “Stronger For Scotland”. The latest polling finds no evidence of a Corbyn effect lifting Labour north of the border. If anything, Labour’s position could be becoming even more dire. The starkness of the divisions between the leader and his parliamentary party is a gift that keeps on giving to the SNP. The terrible mess the Labour leadership got into over its posture on the fiscal charter has been a great help to the Nationalists in nimbly reframing their narrative. |
| Having only recently said she wanted to work with Labour, now Ms Sturgeon brands Mr Corbyn’s party as “unreliable, unelectable… a party divided and in disarray”. Where once the SNP told Scots that there was no point voting Labour because it was Tory-lite, now Ms Sturgeon tells Scots that there is no point voting Labour because it is useless. | Having only recently said she wanted to work with Labour, now Ms Sturgeon brands Mr Corbyn’s party as “unreliable, unelectable… a party divided and in disarray”. Where once the SNP told Scots that there was no point voting Labour because it was Tory-lite, now Ms Sturgeon tells Scots that there is no point voting Labour because it is useless. |
| The Nationalists are targeting every one of the constituency seats that Labour holds in the Edinburgh parliament. That is not a vainglorious ambition. There is a good chance that they could sweep the lot. The big question for the future of the United Kingdom is whether an SNP victory next May will be the prelude to another referendum on independence. Being the big question, it was not once debated on the conference floor. Everyone in the party believes it is a case of when, not if. I agree. Last year’s referendum did not, as David Cameron once supposed, settle the matter “for a generation”. Scotland’s future is not going to be resolved – one way or another – until the question is put again. | The Nationalists are targeting every one of the constituency seats that Labour holds in the Edinburgh parliament. That is not a vainglorious ambition. There is a good chance that they could sweep the lot. The big question for the future of the United Kingdom is whether an SNP victory next May will be the prelude to another referendum on independence. Being the big question, it was not once debated on the conference floor. Everyone in the party believes it is a case of when, not if. I agree. Last year’s referendum did not, as David Cameron once supposed, settle the matter “for a generation”. Scotland’s future is not going to be resolved – one way or another – until the question is put again. |
| It has become a bit of an orthodoxy to say that newer recruits to the SNP, the enthusiasts for independence who have joined since last September to swell the party’s size to more than 114,000, are agitating most strongly for another referendum to come sooner rather than later. Talking to delegates, I found the opposite to be more the case. The newbies seemed mainly content to be guided by their leadership on the great question. It was older Nationalists, the veterans of the long march through all those years when their cause seemed hopeless to the point of eccentricity, who came over as the more impatient to have another go soon. One silvery veteran put it rather plaintively: “I want to die in an independent Scotland.” | It has become a bit of an orthodoxy to say that newer recruits to the SNP, the enthusiasts for independence who have joined since last September to swell the party’s size to more than 114,000, are agitating most strongly for another referendum to come sooner rather than later. Talking to delegates, I found the opposite to be more the case. The newbies seemed mainly content to be guided by their leadership on the great question. It was older Nationalists, the veterans of the long march through all those years when their cause seemed hopeless to the point of eccentricity, who came over as the more impatient to have another go soon. One silvery veteran put it rather plaintively: “I want to die in an independent Scotland.” |
| At the top of the party, Alex Salmond is seen as the leader of the restless tendency, keen to exploit their current ascendancy and fearful that the window of opportunity will start closing if they leave it too long. He has expressed an eagerness to see a second referendum during the next Scottish parliament. With a Tory majority government at Westminster and Labour at war with itself, the impatient argue that there may never be a better context to have another go at securing their goal. | At the top of the party, Alex Salmond is seen as the leader of the restless tendency, keen to exploit their current ascendancy and fearful that the window of opportunity will start closing if they leave it too long. He has expressed an eagerness to see a second referendum during the next Scottish parliament. With a Tory majority government at Westminster and Labour at war with itself, the impatient argue that there may never be a better context to have another go at securing their goal. |
| Nicola Sturgeon is of the cautious tendency. She and those of like mind are conscious that the party has a lot of work to do addressing the doubts that led to a majority of Scots rejecting independence last year. The collapse in the oil price has blown a big hole in the fiscal case for independence and nothing I saw in Aberdeen convinced me that the SNP has yet found a way to repair it. Ms Sturgeon and the cautious tendency are also very aware that a second defeat for independence really would put it off the agenda for a long time. Senior SNP figures say they’d like to see opinion polling showing sustained 60-40 support in favour of independence before they would want to risk putting the question to Scots for a second time. | Nicola Sturgeon is of the cautious tendency. She and those of like mind are conscious that the party has a lot of work to do addressing the doubts that led to a majority of Scots rejecting independence last year. The collapse in the oil price has blown a big hole in the fiscal case for independence and nothing I saw in Aberdeen convinced me that the SNP has yet found a way to repair it. Ms Sturgeon and the cautious tendency are also very aware that a second defeat for independence really would put it off the agenda for a long time. Senior SNP figures say they’d like to see opinion polling showing sustained 60-40 support in favour of independence before they would want to risk putting the question to Scots for a second time. |
| The leader’s public addresses to her party camouflaged these pragmatic calculations in the language of high principle. Explaining why the next SNP manifesto won’t pledge the party to another referendum, she said: “To propose another referendum... without strong evidence that a significant number of those who voted No have changed their minds would be wrong and we won’t do that. It would not be respecting the decision that people have made.” | The leader’s public addresses to her party camouflaged these pragmatic calculations in the language of high principle. Explaining why the next SNP manifesto won’t pledge the party to another referendum, she said: “To propose another referendum... without strong evidence that a significant number of those who voted No have changed their minds would be wrong and we won’t do that. It would not be respecting the decision that people have made.” |
| On the other hand, explaining why there might be another referendum nevertheless, she added the very important rider: “If there is strong and consistent evidence that people have changed their minds and that independence has become the choice of a clear majority in this country, then we have no right to rule out a referendum and we won’t do that either.” | On the other hand, explaining why there might be another referendum nevertheless, she added the very important rider: “If there is strong and consistent evidence that people have changed their minds and that independence has become the choice of a clear majority in this country, then we have no right to rule out a referendum and we won’t do that either.” |
| Translated into plain Scots, the SNP will pursue another referendum when the Nationalists think they can win it. Well, wouldn’t you? | Translated into plain Scots, the SNP will pursue another referendum when the Nationalists think they can win it. Well, wouldn’t you? |
| Paddy Ashdown will be in conversation with Observer associate editor Andrew Rawnsley at a Guardian Members’ event on 10 November. Find out how to book tickets |
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