This weekend saw the SNP faithful gather in Dundee’s Caird Hall for an “Independence Convention”. Humza Yousaf’s idea was to agree among themselves in private on a road map to independence that would break the logjam imposed by the Tory government at Westminster to block any attempt to seriously discuss independence at all. The conclusion appears to be that, if the looming 2024 General Election produces a majority of MPs in Scotland with independence in their manifesto, this justifies another referendum.

Much though this author agrees with the moral argument and would welcome such developments, more rational thinking senses some whistling in the wind here, dictated by the SNP’s current place on a parabola of political fortunes, the unavoidable fate of all political parties.

Some history to support this contention:

After two decades abroad, disconnected from UK politics but involved in both German and American, it was an education to find SNP activists a dynamic mixture of long-serving stalwarts, youthful idealists and virulent anti-Tories, with scant experience or understanding of politics or society outside their own. There was little beyond emotion by way of either pragmatic or visionary appeal to convince others. Tory voters were given no economic case and Labour voters no social case to change their minds.

As a result, the two more seats gained in the 1997 election were dwarfed by the Blair landslide and the substantial block of seats in the new Scottish Parliament negated by a Labour/LibDem coalition denied the SNP any taste of power.

But, after the loss of Donald Dewar, Labour offered only a succession of passive placeholders as First Minister, running the Scottish Parliament as they had run Scottish councils—with scant ambition and functioning as a system for rewarding loyalty. Blair may have won both the 2001 and 2005 UK General Elections s quite handily, but North of the Border, tectonic plates were shifting. In 2001, Labour won 56 seats in Scotland from 46% of the vote, while the SNP won only 5 from 20%. By 2005, that had shifted to 41 and 6, respectively, hardly presaging what came next.

A combination of assiduous local campaigning over a decade by the SNP and a dangerous presumption of entitlement by Labour produced shock results in both local and parliamentary elections in 2007. Suddenly the SNP had 47 seats to Labour’s 46 and formed a government (albeit a minority) for the first time. The advance in councils was similar. Having relied on elected representatives to fund and man their campaigns, Labour was suddenly compromised in its ability to reach people through civic activity and on doorsteps.

Casual observers could have been forgiven in thinking this had little consequence for the Union, as the SNP UK position of 6 MPs and 20% of the vote was repeated in the 2010 General Election. But the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections brought an SNP landslide, jumping the number of SNP seats by 22 to 69 on 45% of the vote, while once-dominant Labour slumped to 37 seats on 32% of the vote.

This so rattled Cameron’s unionist government in Westminster that he granted a Section 30 Order to permit an Independence Referendum to be held in September 2014 to call the SNP’s bluff, as the polls were putting support for independence in Scotland around 20%. Unfortunately for him, his political “nose” was no better than it was for the later “Brexit referendum.  Support for the cross-party “Yes” campaign ballooned until the final result of 45% Yes and 55% No scared unionists by being much closer than predicted.

Paradoxically, this defeat for the cause galvanised many switherers and sceptics to get involved, pushing SNP membership well over 100,000 and boosting other “Yes” parties lie the Scottish Greens. This momentum carried through the June 2016 Brexit referendum. Although won by the Leave campaign by a narrow 52% vs 48% margin, the figure for Scotland was a whopping 63% fir Remain. This further galvanised the SNP and the Yes campaign.

Growing momentum showed in the revolutionary result in the 2015 General Election when the map of Scotland turned yellow: 56 seats on a vote of 50% for the SNP, with the 50 gins all coming from Labour, which was reduced to a single MP on 24% of the vote. It was obvious that this was the apogee of the SNP’s political parabola: nowhere to go but down. If Humza’s contention that winning a majority of Scottish MPs next year would constitute a mandate for another referendum, then 2015 should have made the case irrefutable.

But nobody made that case. Which brings us from history, into the present day

Two years into her leadership, Nicola Sturgeon played her cards cautiously, promoting loyalty and gender balance among ministers, while pursuing laudably “progressive” social policies, such as protection of disabled children, trying to establish a National Care System and providing baby boxes to new mothers. This has eroded a once-broad appeal. Policies like the Gender Recognition Reform and their Deposit Return Scheme. Both have cost political capital as such initiatives were quashed by Westminster and made few new friends.

The difficulty arises because, ever since the Brexit vote, the SNP has been cultivating the already-converted, trying to rein in their frustration. Despite her unquestioned skills in leadership and debate, Nicola Sturgeon has neither hatched any broad-based “big ideas” to appeal to the 50% leaning towards unionism, nor created a positive platform of competence in the powers already held that would encourage the doubters to believe in the brighter, richer future Scotland might find with independence. Business for Scotland has framed such a vision in its Scotland the Brief booklet, but you’d hardly know it from the SNP. Similarly, Ireland or Denmark could be glowing examples of what Scotland-sized countries could achieve but the SNP is not making the case.

What is happening to the SNP parallels what happened to Labour as it became hollowed out in the 1990s, relying on rewards for loyalty to perpetuate the status quo.

Unfortunately for Humza, he has chosen to remain shackled to Nicola’s unambitious “progressive” agenda. This appeal to his own political backyard of Glasgow and its surroundings, where the SNP currently hold every constituency seat preaches to the choir—just as Labour did two decades ago. He has also sidelined Ash Rega’s plea for a non-party independence convention, based outside the SNP. He may galvanise the troops to get out and canvass this summer, but without more specific visionary inspiration, will they appeal to Scotland’s sceptical half?

The trouble with parabolas is: once you pass the apogee and make no radical change, the trajectory leads inevitably downward.

#1072—1,096 words