SNP independence offering makes no sense

The Eleusinian Rites provide academics with the chance to enjoy their favourite pastime: a bit of ‘what if-ery’. It’s become one of the great historical conundrums.

In 1000 years, professors will still ponder what really went on in Demeter’s temples, just as they’ll still puzzle over who killed the Princes in the Tower, whether Nessie existed, why so many people watched Top Gear, how Donald Trump became dictator of the world in 2030, and what actually was the SNP’s independence policy.

READ MORE: SNP deflating like a balloon 

In truth, there’s probably more chance of understanding the Eleusinian Rites than unravelling what the SNP thinks its up to when it comes to independence.

Like many, I’m old enough to remember when Nicola Sturgeon was warning us that the ‘de facto referendum’ scheme was a deadly “unionist trap”. That was back in 2019.

It wasn’t long, though, before she was advocating that self-same plan.

Nevertheless, in comparison to what the SNP now intends, Sturgeon’s Janus-faced switcheroo seems the pinnacle of political stratagem.

Ahead of their party conference, Humza Yousaf was proposing that if the SNP won the ‘most’ seats at the next general election that would trigger independence negotiations or another referendum. Evidently, ‘most’ can mean 'not that many'.

Then came discussions about changing to a ‘majority of the vote’ – which would have effectively been a return to the de facto scheme.

Now, the SNP has decided that if the party wins the ‘majority of seats’ then that’s sufficient to trigger the Second Coming, or whatever they expect us to believe.

Forgive another diversion into antiquity, this time on ‘the Laconic Phrase’. Laconia was the part of Greece where Sparta was found. Philip II of Macedonia – Alexander the Great’s dad – once threatened Sparta saying: “If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out.”

To which Sparta simply replied: “If…”

It’s where we get our word ‘laconic’: someone of few, yet pithy, words.

One could be forgiven for offering Yousaf ‘the Spartan Reply’. He says ‘if’ the party wins a majority of seats then that triggers either negotiations or another referendum. Well, indeed. ‘If…’ Have they checked the polls?

What the SNP offers is risible. Yousaf knows that. At the last UK election, the SNP won 48 seats. They now tell us that if they win a majority of seats – a mere 29 MPs – then that’s the secret to success.

So the SNP were stronger in the past, but being weaker in the future is better? Or is it that being strong in the past was actually weak, and being weaker in the future is strong?

Subject the party’s thinking to some undergraduate philosophy and it falls to pieces. Sorry, let’s correct that. The SNP’s offering doesn’t need subjected to scrutiny to collapse. It’s too flimsy to sustain even a beam of sunlight. It’s bereft. Pointless. Stupid.

You can tell Yousaf knows this course is pathetic and doomed. Ahead of the conference, he made clear that once a strategy was settled on – this ‘majority of seats’ plan – then, as he put it, “we’re done”. In other words, he wants a halt to this endless juvenile chattering and wonkery.

Yousaf isn’t daft. He’s made clear that talking about the ‘process’ of independence “just doesn’t interest people”. That’s code for: it bores the electorate to death. He also said that voters “don’t understand why independence is relevant to their everyday lives”.

In other words, the SNP has failed to make the case for independence since 2014, and people want to see a government govern during an omni-crisis that’s ruining their lives. Bread today, not jam tomorrow.

But yet again, the SNP – especially its grisly fundamentalist nationalist base – thinks it knows better than Scotland. Why? Because the SNP thinks it is Scotland.

SNP Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, says Scots should “put trust in themselves”. Here’s the thing: we do trust ourselves. It’s politicians we don’t trust. Flynn and Co need to do a hell of a lot better than simply flap their lips for people to believe them.

Just look how craven the SNP was, dodging a conference debate on private schools. Might that have embarrassed their privately-educated leader? And we should trust these people?

There’s only one way for the SNP to have any hope of achieving its goals. Everybody outside this blind party – whatever their constitutional position – knows the answer: shut up about independence. You should have shut up about it years ago. We understand what you stand for, you don’t need to endlessly tell us, and we’re intelligent enough to know there’s no chance currently of you getting your way.

Voters want good schools and hospitals, economic security, and safe streets. That’s it. Do your very best on those issues, and carry your independence beliefs in your back pocket. When you finally manage to govern Scotland decently, then pull out that belief in independence, and remind us that if we were independent you could govern even better.

READ MORE: Where next for SNP?  

Wield power so well that majority independence support builds and builds, then stabilises. Then paint a vision of what an independent Scotland looks like. Inspire us. Then take that majority support in the polls to Westminster, along with all that good governing you’ve been doing, and your vision for independence, and there’s no Prime Minister who could or will stand against you in those circumstances.

For now, though, the SNP’s independence offering just declines in tandem with its standing in the polls. All the party now does is ensure that daily fewer support it. Eventually, it will talk itself into opposition. What then for independence?

Around half the country are Yes voters. If the SNP destroys itself, these voters will have no possible vehicle for their ambitions, and the entire independence project will have been sacrificed on the alter of the SNP’s relentless desire to talk solely to itself.