A year on from the referendum on Scottish independence, the future of the United Kingdom remains uncertain. Support for the Scottish National Party, whose annual conference began in Aberdeen on 15 October, has surged since Scotland voted No on 18 September 2014: it won 56 of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats in the general election, and is poised to increase its governing majority in the Holyrood elections next May.
Predictions that defeat in the referendum would undermine the nationalist movement were as ill-judged as the Labour MP George Robertson’s assertion two decades ago that “devolution will kill nationalism stone dead”. Today, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her immediate predecessor, Alex Salmond, insist that a second referendum on Scottish independence is “inevitable”.
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