Scottish independence

I agree so no matter how well the SNP do and what kind of theoretical stalemate happens neither major party will ever give the SNP what they want in exchange for majority support.

I think we will see an act and Westminster will stipulate that Yes will need a majority of the electorate, just like they did in 1978

Also considering Jack is about to be appointed to the House of the unelected

English nationalists keep on saying that there isn't a hope in hell Scotland would vote to leave the union. Why aren't they (the English nationalists) begging for a referendum then? A referendum defeat would kill off the issue for years, maybe decades.

But that huge difference in culture was still not enough to get independence across the line in 2014, nor is it enough now to push polls above mid 50% range.

There just doesn't seem to be enough people finding themselves culturally different enough to break away from the UK.

Yes, lack of a written constitution was dependent on parliamentarians and Government being honest, decent and having integrity.

It couldn't possibly cope with the Parliament being taken over by a bunch of liars and crooks with badness in their hearts aka the current English Tory Brexit Party.

Scotland doesn't want to leave the UK simply to join the EU. It wants to be an independent state (the SNP is a nationalist party, not a 'let's join the EU' party).

For nationalists, the issues is not that Scotland should be in the EU. It's that Scotland should decide whether Scotland should be in the EU (and it would decide to be in the EU).

So, no. Independence isn't about getting Scotland back into the EU. It's about enabling Scotland to decide whether to be in the EU. We know, of course, what they would decide, but that doesn't make it the point of the whole exercise.

How about the SNP members of Parliament slowly one by one resign from parliament and force a long series of by elections with the SNP fighting each one on an Indy platform. This would keep the question firmly to the fore and in the age of social media could become a massive embarrassment for the UK government in refusing Scotland its independence referendum. Currently the SNP has 45 MP's so they could really drag this tactic out and make an absolute mockery of the UK's refusal to grant them a referendum.

'Scottish unionists' tend to be a rather odd bunch. Not entirely dissimilar to hardcore Tory voters south of the border and DUP voters to the west - right wing and conservative and in love with the British monarchy and so on (these would be the Scottish guys who voted for Brexit in 2016, despite it clearly being an English nationalist project).

"Still stuck in the mid 50s", eh?

Just before the Brexit referendum it was in the mid 30s. It has been on an upward trend ever since.

I don't think the SNP would do this, not least because voters generally don't like elections, and the idea of a rolling series of bye-elections would probably strike voters as especially unappealing.

Plus, the obvious response from the Tories is to decline to stand in the bye-elections. This costs them nothing, since they are not going to win the bye-elections anyway; it ties in with a denunciation of the bye-elections as meaningless tokenism/grandstanding; and it would undermine any attempt by the SNP to present the bye-election results as a series of local plebiscites on the position of the Westminster government if the Westminster government doesn't have candidates in the bye-elections.

Sturgeon's announced position is in fact to the treat the next UK general election, in Scotland, as a de facto referendum on independence. The suggestion is that if the SNP secures more than 50% of the Scottish vote (somethign, SFAIK, they have never done yet) they will treat that as a mandate from the voters of Scotland to pursue Scottish independence. She hasn't as yet said what the SNP will do to pursue independence, given that mandate, but so far the SNP has been firmly committed to lawful and constitutional means, and I think it would be a huge risk to move away from that.

To be clear; I am not alluding here to the possibility that the SNP would seek independence by force - there is zero chance of that. But, given a democratic mandate, they could consider campaigns of non-cooperation with Westminster, disobedience, protest, etc - e.g. Scottish national and local government institutions refusing to co-operate with the exercise of Westminster authority in Scotland — Ghandian tactics, in short, designed to highlight the lack of democratic legitimacy of Westminster rule in Scotland. The SNP has always set its face against that and I think still will, even if they get the mandate they seek at the next election. But if they are not going to do that, what are they going to do? This, I think, will be the dominant issue at the SNP conference next year.)

While there has been both low and high support I think the trend is 'steady' rather than significantly upward

It actually fell after 2014 and only recovered that level of support in 2019.

But my point was that, in light of a current dis-functional UK political establishment, that still 45% of people still seem to prefer the union to independence. I would have thought that any rational, politically aware person would do anything to get away from the toxic mess that is Westminster right now. If there isn't 'overwhelming' support for independence in the current circumstances, then it is very hard to see it growing further.

@Peregrinus "But if they are not going to do that, what are they going to do? This, I think, will be the dominant issue at the SNP conference next year."

I personally think that many Scots are too cautious and fear independence as a leap into the unknown. The SNP need to argue that the uncertainty is with the Union and Westminster rather than with independence, where Scottish people are free to make their own decisions. And they can do this with reference to the EU and brexit by showing that the very thing they feared in 2014, that an independent Scotland would be outside the EU, has come to pass against their wishes. What other bad decisions could be made for them in the future by a government in Westminster? The only way to ensure input into those decisions is to make decisions for Scotland and its' people in Scotland.

Scottish ministers also need to canvass support abroad, especially in US. They cannot talk directly to the administration, but they can begin to canvass representatives with Scottish backgrounds in order to build up critical support there.

It was actually bang on 50% (with 94.9% of the seats, thank you very much FPTP) in 2015, a post indyref but pre Brexit election.

Last time, 2019 in the height of all the parliamentary Brexit rancour the SNP got 45%.

And in 2017 it was 36%.

So 50+% plus is not a million miles off achieving.

All depends on how Westminster behaves I think, obviously the more of a s**tshow it is the better for SNP.