The surge in support for Scottish independence – and the future of the Union – is rightly recognised to be one of the defining issues of the next decade. This is not, as the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne recently claimed, merely because of Brexit: there are deeper forces at play. Ever since the SNP formed a devolved minority government in 2007, the New Statesman has cautioned Westminster politicians that they ignore the Scottish question at their peril.
This warning was vindicated when the SNP won a majority in 2011 and the Yes campaign achieved 45 per cent of the vote in the 2014 independence referendum. The collapse of the once hegemonic Scottish Labour Party at the 2015 general election removed the main unionist opposition. Only Ruth Davidson, when she was the Scottish Conservative leader, has since dented the SNP’s aura of invincibility.
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