IT is only three months since Nicola Sturgeon announced she was paving the way for a second referendum on Scottish independence. However, the First Minister was careful what she said that day. There was a promise to hold a consultation but there was no pledge to go on and hold a referendum and certainly no indication of the possible timing. And now, a few days into the new year, Ms Sturgeon has confirmed that 2017 is not an option for the vote. There will be no second independence referendum this year.

For those in the SNP who would like to see a quick referendum – and it is a significant tranche of the party, particularly among those inspired to join in 2014 – the First Minister’s announcement will be a serious disappointment. Many in the SNP are convinced the Brexit debacle and the presence of a right-wing Conservative Government at Westminster make the time right for a quick second referendum. It is that old argument, “carpe diem”, which countless politicians have ignored to their cost.

However, Ms Sturgeon appears to have accepted that several factors are making life difficult for a quick referendum, the first of which is the logical problem at the heart of any attempt to hold another vote before a Brexit deal. We are still a long way off knowing what the terms of the deal with the EU will be, which means voters in a 2017 referendum would have to make a decision without knowing the details of the issue that caused it in the first place. If another referendum is to be held, it should only happen after the results of the Brexit negotiations.

Then there is the issue of the polls. The SNP’s internal polling is sophisticated and, combined with external polls, it has started to build a narrative that is not conducive to an early referendum. Not only did a recent BMG survey for The Herald find that 61 per cent of people were against going to the polls this year, the Brexit bounce many expected in the support for independence failed to materialise. Ms Sturgeon knows that if she ignored these polls and lost another referendum, it would be the end of her career and set back the independence cause for decades or more.

Ms Sturgeon and others in the party are also aware of the danger of making too many easy assumptions about the relationship between Brexit and Scottish independence. The official party line is that the SNP is anti-Brexit and pro-EU, but that narrative is not quite supported at the grassroots level – in fact, one poll found that 29 per cent of SNP supporters voted Leave compared to 16 per cent of Lib Dems and 17 per cent of Labour supporters, making the SNP the most Euro sceptic Scottish party. It is another complicating factor for Ms Sturgeon in attempting to use Brexit to drive independence.

The First Minister is also aware of another important fact: impatience is growing among many voters who can see the difference between the strategising over another referendum and the promise from the SNP that the priority in government would be education and health. Ms Sturgeon is absolutely right to pursue a bespoke deal for Scotland on the EU and Brexit. But the option of a referendum must not be allowed to distract her and her colleagues from governing the county.