Since 2016, she has stated that Brexit has transformed the debate on independence and provided the necessary “material change of circumstances” that, according to her, would justify a repeat of the referendum.
The decision of the UK electorate to leave the European Union, even though the majority of Scots voted to stay, gave Sturgeon the excuse that he wanted to start his activist base and start calling for a another referendum.
But if Brexit “changed everything”, it was difficult to explain why polls seemed to suggest that Scots themselves had not changed their minds, that most had decided they would prefer to live in a UK outside the EU that in a Scotland he had returned. within the commercial block.
However, demanding a mandate in the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary elections, in which her party failed to get a general majority, the Prime Minister began to agitate for another Section 30 order that would allow her government to start organize the second referendum “once in a generation.” in three years.
But Theresa May, who had replaced David Cameron at number 10, said no. This was an extraordinary development; the nationalists were already accustomed to the governments of the United Kingdom doing what they demanded, whether it was independence referendums or more transferred powers. The times of Gordon Brown and Cameron had damaged the nationalists. But now they came across a relentless brick wall.
When Boris Johnson replaced May in 2019, the response was the same: “Now is not the time.”
Uncertainty and division
This was a dilemma for Sturgeon. Faced with a series of failures and scandals in domestic politics, he needed the distraction of another referendum. More importantly, I needed to move forward on this iconic policy. Otherwise, what sense did it make for the SNP to be in charge? In the 2021 Holyrood election, his party again fell below the general majority, leading to an agreement with the Scottish Greens who supported independence.
Last week, the prime minister capitulated to her own members. Despite insisting for years that he would not endorse a “wild” or illegal referendum, he announced that he had set aside October 19, 2023 as voting day for the next vote.
And, given the limits of the Scottish Parliament to establish a policy in a matter reserved for Westminster, he announced that his plan would be moved to the Supreme Court.
If the court decided that the referendum proposal was ultra vires and beyond Holyrood’s legal scope, it would return to Plan B: make the next UK general election a “de facto” referendum, which the SNP would use as mandated to begin independence negotiations with the UK government.
It is miles away from the moderate and statesman language that sturgeon has become accustomed to in recent years. He desperately wanted an official referendum endorsed by the UK because that would be the only path to international recognition of Scotland’s independence, including a future path to EU membership.
But these considerations are irrelevant to too many Prime Minister activists, who would happily settle for a unilateral declaration of independence if that were the only way to break free from the UK.
In fact, for many of them, this would be their preferred option.
But now it’s hard to see a way forward for Sturgeon. While it is impossible to guess the Supreme Court, judges are widely expected to veto their plans, especially because a recent precedent has established that the Scottish Parliament cannot pass legislation that forces, or even pressures, the government of the UK to act in a certain way.
But even if, in some way, the court approves a form of diluted plebiscite, the vast majority of pro-UK Scots will boycott it, leaving the result meaningless and excluding Westminster from any obligation even to acknowledge that has occurred.
And as for Plan B, does any party have the right to redefine what general elections are for? Who can say why individual voters put an X in this or that box? This is a “strategy” that hardly deserves description.
Sturgeon’s main complaint is that the UK government takes her word for it and refuses to pass another referendum within the timeframe that is normally accepted as “generation”. But instead of acknowledging his impotence to do anything about the constitutional framework that restricts his actions, he has chosen to do what leaders should never do: he has decided to tell his supporters what they want to hear, in instead of what they need to hear. .
The consequences for Scotland are one more year to eighteen months of uncertainty and division. The consequences for the Prime Minister’s party, at least in the long run, could be truly devastating.