The future of the union.

This article was written against a rapidly changing political landscape in Scotland. Almost every day brought a new development. In late March 2021 the Report from the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints and the Report from James Hamilton, the Independent Advisor on the Scottish Ministerial Code, were published; two days later Alex Salmond launched a new political party. Not an untypical week in Scottish politics.

This article will outline how Scottish politics has developed since devolution. It will look more generally at recent demands for independence and will consider whether devolving powers is a way of satisfying demands for more autonomy or a spur to greater dissatisfaction.

Scotland went into its seventh Scottish Parliamentary election during the most unusual circumstances of a global pandemic. What would have been expected to be a single-issue election on a second referendum now had to take account of dealing with and recovering from the pandemic.

Background

For the past ten years being politically active in Scotland has felt like being at the centre of a maelstrom. Since 2011, when Alex Salmond's Scottish National Party (SNP) became the first ever majority government in the Scottish Parliament, it has been hard to draw breath. The following three years were one long referendum campaign.

The 'No' campaign won the 2014 independence referendum by a margin of 10 per cent, but that failed to settle the issue even for a short time. One year later, at the 2015 general election, Scottish Labour was decimated, losing forty of its forty-one seats. Then in 2016 Labour lost most of its First Past The Post seats in the Scottish Parliament and was reduced from thirty-eight to twenty-four MSPs, putting it in third place. It was no longer the official opposition. Added to that, Labour has had five different leaders since the independence referendum and went into the 2021 elections with a leader who was only elected in February this year.

The Scottish Conservative Party has benefited from this, enjoying a new lease of life in the Scottish Parliament after losing all its Scottish MPs in the 1997 general election. Because of the regional list system in elections to the Scottish Parliament it was able to win eighteen seats in 2003, giving it once again a national profile. In 2016, it overtook Labour to become the official opposition. It too has had a turnover of leaders, with four changes since 2014.

The SNP may, on the surface, appear more stable, with only two leaders, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, since 2014. But under the surface there have been significant problems. The SNP made a remarkable advance in the 2015 general election, winning fifty-six seats, up from six. It had a slight setback in 2017, when among its casualties was Alex Salmond.

Since at least 2017 tensions have been escalating around the route to independence and how a second referendum could be demanded from reluctant Tory prime ministers. Many members and supporters thought that the dominance of the SNP in the 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 elections gave it a clear mandate for a further referendum, particularly after Brexit. There was, however, a different approach, as in First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's statement in 2019 that she wanted a referendum to be permitted constitutionally under a Section 30 order, as the 2014 referendum was. Sturgeon describes this as the 'gold-standard' for such a decision. Meanwhile, many members supported the idea of calling a wild-cat referendum to claim legitimacy and others argued for a declaration of independence with no further discussion.

These divisions took on a different aspect when Alex Salmond was accused of sexual harassment. The procedures were so badly handled by the Scottish government that it resulted in Salmond being awarded [pounds sterling]500,000 in legal expenses in August 2019. This was followed by a police investigation and trial in which he was found not guilty on twelve counts and not proven on one count, in March 2020. The subsequent inquiries into the handling of the investigation were critical of the process but did not find that Nicola Sturgeon had breached the Ministerial Code.

The divisions around Salmond and the referendum were causing considerable disquiet when further rows erupted over proposed legislation on gender recognition, which led to Joanna Cherry MP being sacked from the front bench in February 2021. She had developed a high profile during legal challenges to Brexit and was seen as part of the Salmond camp.

As Salmond remained suspended there was no quick way for him to return to the SNP or have a role in the important May 2021 election. Instead he launched the Alba Party. Within a few days it announced thirty-two candidates, four for each of the eight regional lists. These included two sitting SNP MPs and seven serving SNP councillors. In the event, however, the new party failed to win any seats. The SNP, with 64 seats, is one shy of a majority in the Scottish Parliament, but should be able to count on the Scottish Green Party (with 8 seats) for support on the issue of a referendum. With Nicola Sturgeon's position vindicated she can put the Referendum Bill before Parliament without having to set a date for the vote. She will have four or five years before she...