A year ago, I argued that if the SNP wanted independence to become a realistic prospect in the coming years, 2023 would have to be the year that the broader independence movement remobilised. The opposite happened.

Nicola Sturgeon resigned, triggering a bitterly divisive leadership contest setting the scene for a year marred by scandal layered upon scandal, policy failure upon policy failure, confusion and contestation in the ranks, and by-election defeats in the country. As a result, the SNP are set for defeat in 2024.

The poll average since the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election implies that the SNP lead Labour by half a percentage point, down from their 26.4 point lead over Labour in 2019. Such a result would be a massive blow to the SNP – per Electoral Calculus, they would win 20 seats, down from the 48 they won in 2019, and Labour would win 27.

Parties long in the tooth and struggling with scandals and policy failures tend to lose the public’s attention. Once voters decide they want a change, convincing them otherwise is exceedingly difficult, even if the party manages to pull itself out of its tailspin.

And this is not necessarily the result of antipathy towards the governing party. Speaking to independence supporters who have formed the SNP’s thus-far impenetrable voter coalition, I detect a prevailing mood of disappointment and disillusion. That can be as politically dangerous as anger.

My not-so-daring prediction is that the SNP will lose the 2024 general election in Scotland; a litany of commentators will declare the death of independence, and the 2011-24 period will be cast as a lost opportunity that will not come around again.

But such reports of the independence movement’s death will be greatly exaggerated and premised upon a fundamental misunderstanding of what the independence movement is, the place of that movement in the Scottish body politic, and the SNP’s place within the independence movement.

Scottish independence is not the project of a single party. The SNP may be its great proponent and the political organisation that kept that project alive for decades in the wilderness, but it is today embedded in a greater movement that stretches well beyond its membership.

Studying the life cycles of such movements, scholars of political contention like the late Charles Tilly and Cornell University’s Sydney Tarrow identify that successful movements engage in political contention – the making of conflictual claims on others, in this case the claim on sovereign power over Scotland – episodically and opportunistically. They mobilise, grow, diversify, split, shrink, and demobilise in response to shifting political opportunity structures.

Read more: Mark McGeoghegan: Our governments need to grow up about Scotland’s role in the world

The political opportunity structure available to the Scottish independence movement was blown open in 2011 by the SNP’s unprecedented and unexpected parliamentary majority at Holyrood, widespread Scottish public support for a referendum, and the judgement of the UK government that not holding a referendum would grow secessionist support.

It mobilised and rapidly grew in the run-up to the 2014 referendum, and its organisational structures diversified. The 2014 referendum had 21 registered pro-independence campaign groups, dozens of local, informal activist groups, and a widespread and diverse network of pro-independence voices.

In defeat, the permissive opportunity structure that enabled the independence movement’s mobilisation closed. It largely demobilised, with many of the campaigns and activist groups formed during the referendum wound down or absorbed into the SNP. That particular episode of secessionist contention ended.

But the Scottish independence movement did not, not simply because the SNP continued to be successful electorally but because the movement more broadly met and continues to meet all the prerequisites for a sustainable secessionist movement.

The informal and highly diffuse social networks formed among supporters of independence in the 2011-14 period persist. It retains and regularly exercises a repertoire of familiar political tactics from protest marches to electoral politicking. Even in the political wilderness, it will maintain the minimal level of political activity required to survive.

Most crucially, its support in the country has not eroded as support for the SNP has. Maintaining cultural frames that resonate across the population is crucial to the sustainability of a movement, and the appeal of independence endures.

The one element the independence movement currently lacks is opportunity. The political opportunity structure available to the independence movement following the 2016 Brexit referendum was not as open as its leaders believed, and has since closed even further. There is no clear path to secession within the next few years. But that does not mean the political opportunity structure will not open again.

The international system continues to be gripped by a perma-crisis that began with the Great Recession, which continues to evade the efforts of even the most powerful nations to address it.

The coming Labour government might end the UK’s self-harm for a time, and mitigate the harm caused by the political and economic shocks emanating from global crises. Still, it will not be empowered to resolve those crises themselves.

Climate change, an ageing population, refugee flows, geopolitical transition, food insecurity, energy shocks. I could go on. These will all continue to challenge and undermine the British state for the foreseeable future, so opportunities for outsider politics to gain a hearing will continue to emerge.

Those opportunities for the independence movement will be greater, not lesser, if the SNP find themselves out of government in the coming years. After two or three terms of Labour government, with the only realistic alternative within the Union being the (potentially right-populist) Conservatives, the appeal of independence may only grow.

And then there are the facts that younger age cohorts show significantly greater support for independence than older cohorts, and that this support does not appear to fade as they get older.

Read more: Mark McGeoghegan: The election that could build the path to victory for Sarwar

Reports of the independence movement’s death in 2024 will be greatly exaggerated. It has deep roots in the Scottish body politic and will not be eliminated by the SNP’s struggles. As its political autumn turns to winter, the most we can say is that it will go into hibernation.

In the coming decade of global disorder and domestic ruction, opportunities to remobilise the independence movement will emerge. Whether the movement will take those opportunities is another question, but it will persist long enough to do so. The years 2024 and 2026 might bring defeat for the SNP, but the question of Scotland’s constitutional future is going nowhere in the long run.