On 28 November, the Scottish National Party held its annual convention, which ended with a keynote address by the party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, the current Prime Minister. Her speech launched the campaign for the May 2021 election of the Edinburgh Parliament where, according to the polls, the SNP should obtain a large majority of seats, with a programme centred around the demand for a new referendum on Scottish independence.
The annual congress of the SNP was held this year with the means of the Internet, because of the health crisis that also affects Scotland. Usually, thousands of delegates, nominated by the militant sections, are gathered in the Glasgow Convention Centre, the only one able to contain the crowd of those representing the tens of thousands of militants of the Scottish Independence Party, still a member of the European Free Alliance despite the Brexit.
But even without its annual demonstration, the SNP has never seemed stronger in Scotland. This strength is due first of all to the way Scotland, which has a wide range of health expertise, managed the Covid-19 crisis. Polls give 72% favourable opinions to the Scottish government of Nicola Sturgeon, while the management of the Johnson government in London is highly criticized.
Also, six months before the Scottish Parliament elections, the SNP seems assured of a large victory around a new four-year term for Nicola Sturgeon, more popular than ever.
This will be the “first stage” in the process that Nicola Sturgeon has declared herself certain will lead to Scotland’s independence in the next term.
Because of the Brexit, the Scottish public, which was overwhelmingly opposed to an exit from the European Union, is increasingly in favour of independence.
Thus, the last fourteen polls conducted this year give the winning “yes” with scores ranging from 51 to 59%. Never in the past has the “yes” been so strong, and it benefits from a dynamic that continues to progress.
Boris Johnson refuses this new Scottish referendum whereas the previous one, in 2014, had given the victory to the “no” with 55% of the votes. He asks for “at least one generation” between two consultations. But the Scottish independentists have no problem objecting that the Brexit has completely changed the democratic situation.
Indeed, in 2014, the main argument of the opponents was to agitate the threat of an exit from the European Union in case of victory of the yes to independence. Also, many Scots feel cheated because, in the end, the victory of the “no” put them in the wake of a United Kingdom that ultimately decided on Brexit, against the will of 62% of the Scots.
Hence the growing pressure for the next referendum to be decided in 2021, the first year of the Brexit. For Nicola Sturgeon, “the Scottish people have the right to choose their future” and she concluded her speech by asking to “demonstrate, with composure and patience, that Scotland is ready to take its place in the great family of independent nations”.
For the Scots, the British government will have to give in and allow this referendum to take place under legal conditions, such as the one that has already taken place in 2014. Boris Johnson does not see it that way and will seek by all means to prevent it. But the strength of Scottish public opinion could end up overcoming his opposition, with the implicit support of a European Union that can only see the advantage of recovering Scotland within it, if only because Scottish territorial waters represent the essential fishing grounds that Brexit will deprive European fishing.
The Scottish political path, full of “composure and patience”, may well be the right one.
Kabylia Blog 