Scottish independence is dead in the water

The Fourth of July may well mean independence for the USA but that date has probably also heralded Scotland saying, yet again, “no” to independence and the breaking up of Britain.

That, surely, must be the main conclusion from their entirely deserved collapse in today’s general election, towards which the SNP looks to be heading.

Its apparent reversal under John Swinney – its third leader in little more than a year – surely means there can now be no cause for it to continue banging the drum for independence for the simple reason that the voters have said – Forget it. We don’t want it.

Swinney had said that if the electorate returned a majority of Scottish seats – 29 – for the SNP he’d have a mandate to begin negotiations with Downing Street for independence. But in the polling stations on Thursday his claim looks to have got up and bit him, with the voters denying him that majority.

But if he refuses to acknowledge defeat on this issue, we needn’t worry because the voters have done it for him.

After losing the 2014 referendum, the SNP refused to accept the result, and went on to win 56 out of the 59 Scottish constituencies less than a year later. They showed themselves to be an awesome political force. But it now risks taking on the appearance of little more than a tiny fringe party, united only by its adherence to independence.

Incredibly, one of those who will probably be blamed for the SNP vote crashing is a lead presenter on the ITV election programme. As First Minister of Scotland and party leader since she stepped smartly into Alex Salmond’s shoes after the nationalist defeat in the independence referendum, there is no other role in which to put Nicola Sturgeon other than as the person many believe to be the main author of her party’s astonishing reverse.

If Salmond, her predecessor and former mentor – now sworn enemy – may have almost engineered the breakup of the United Kingdom, the Sturgeon legacy is dramatically different.

One year after she resigned as leader, the SNP is predicted to not only slump from 48 seats and third placed party in the House of Commons, to being forced to give up what was looked upon as the jewel in its crown – the constituencies in Glasgow and West Central Scotland.

This was the prized Labour heartland where, as the old cliché goes, Labour votes were weighed not counted, but on the back of decades of Labour neglect the SNP stormed their way to winning every seat. However, old Scottish Labour habits – of arrogance and of taking the voters’ support for granted – die hard and soon transferred to the SNP incomers.

As a result, citizens in the new SNP strongholds such as the city of Glasgow and surrounding counties, saw little uptick in their quality of life. And SNP pledges to increase the level of educational attainment for the poorest pupils went unfulfilled while NHS waiting lists for hospital treatment continued to rise in spite of promises to the contrary.

One of the worst indictments of SNP governance has been the charge – not yet contradicted – that because of long waiting times some cancer patients are having to pay for their own treatment.

On the east coast, Dundee – along with Glasgow the only Scottish city to support independence in the 2014 referendum – gained the unwelcome title as the drug death capital of Scotland, if not the UK.

And yet both its SNP members of the Scottish  Parliament were ministers – one of them in the cabinet as health minister.

The SNP’s obsession with independence instead of concern for policies that helped their constituents gradually saw Labour recover its former “property” in West Central Scotland. It was helped with the election of a new, young and ambitious Scottish leader, Anas Sarwar scion of a wealthy Scottish Asian family, to replace the “Corbynista” version, Richard Leonard.

But the nationalists had begun to sink into a, frankly, incredible series of scandals. First up, we saw former leader Alex Salmond charged and acquitted of a series of sex assaults which saw him accuse Sturgeon of leading a conspiracy against him over the charges, which she denied.

Then there was her attempt to legally redefine the treatment of those who wish to change their gender – a move vetoed by the UK parliament as being outside the remit of the Scottish Parliament. Her preoccupation with this issue, rather than bread and butter matters, was a killer blow to party loyalists.

But by then a massive police investigation was underway about over £600,000, donated by SNP members, going missing from party coffers. A few months later Sturgeon resigned as leader, giving reasons that many believed were unsatisfactory. Then, in a dramatic development, her family home was raided by the police which in turn saw first her husband, then a senior official, then herself, arrested – and then all three released.

Her husband has now been charged with embezzlement in connection with the missing cash and police have said she is still under investigation. She has always denied any wrongdoing.

Her successor, Humza Yousaf, spent only a year as First Minister before resigning instead of facing a no-confidence motion over his ending the SNP coalition with the Scottish Greens. But this followed him backing, instead of sacking, a senior minister who’d expected the taxpayer to stump up £11,000 to pay for his holiday use of an iPad.

The veteran John Swinney inherited a party that had not just run out of steam but through maladministration tinged with arrogance and  incompetence had lost the support of even ardent nationalists. On a larger scale the voters were past being disappointed with the SNP; they were angry.

Its only policy was the demand for independence and as their votes have proved – hardly anyone wants that.