Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
Scottish politics is a bit more nuanced than you're suggesting, Rizz. The SNP has been very good at making itself look like a centre left social democratic party and the natural alternative to Labour in Scotland. At the last Scottish elections they spent a good deal of time saying "what referendum?" and accusing Labour, Tories and the rest of being obsessed with the subject. There are therefore a significant number of people who voted SNP in the last Scottish elections, and indeed the last UK elections, who don't support independence and believed that in voting SNP, normally as an alternative to voting Labour, they were not voting for a referendum.
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It's not really a big surprise they are calling for one. It is their purpose after all and they explicitly said in their manifesto they may call for one if we left the EU but at the time most people expected a Remain vote. The question of Independence did loom over the Brexit vote as well.
The question I have is who'll lead the Unionist campaign in Scotland? Labour is nowhere and the Government is both unpopular and preoccupied. A cross-party campaign is not on the table this time and there is no existing group from which to draw from. The Yes campaign are still lying in wait, they all went into other pro-Independence groups, the No campaign packed up and went home.
The confidence I've seen from some politicians that the economic case for Independence is so weak that they won't go for it reminds me of the confidence they had that the 2014 campaign would be easy and that the SNP were bluffing over Brexit being a trigger for Independence.