Scotland in paralysis as conditions for referendum fail to emerge - John McLellan

Despite Scottish support for the EU and the unpopularity of Boris Johnson, for some years the SNP has struggled to build sufficient support for independence to make another independence referendum a gamble worth taking.

Even if the Scottish Government had the power to call a vote, the fact that support for separation rarely gets beyond 50 per cent means it won’t be called, and a new poll shows just why. Some 52 per cent of people cite the economic consequences of independence as their main concern, well ahead of EU membership at 36 per cent.

It means that to be certain of victory, the economic questions must be adequately addressed, and that will not be achieved by pointing to selective statistics from other small countries and inferring, like Del Boy, that one day we’ll all be millionaires.

Support for SNP remains relatively undented - but the conditions required for another independence referendum remain out of reach, writes John McLellan. PIC: Lisa Ferguson/JPImedia.

The cost-of-living crisis could be with us for years, and there is nothing on the geopolitical horizon that points to food and fuel costs coming down, not when climate doom-mongering from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urges governments to act in ways which will push up costs even higher.

Meanwhile, another poll shows support for the SNP has been relatively undented by significant recent failures, such as lengthening A&E waiting times and the ferries fiasco.This points to paralysis, where government policy is still driven by the need to build support for independence without ever achieving the conditions, or the legal basis, to hold a referendum. Scotland is stuck.

-John McLellan is a Conservative councillor for Craigentinny/Duddingston

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