Hell hath no fury like a man scorned. Like a disgruntled thesp overlooked for a lifetime achievement award, Alex Salmond has been strongly hinting to anyone who’ll listen that Scotland would have had a second referendum by now if he’d been in charge after 2014 instead of that awful Nicola Sturgeon. In Salmond’s blockbuster counterfactual, he would have pressured Westminster to allow another independence referendum, while also brilliantly negotiating Scotland’s entry into the European single market.
Quite how he would have achieved this while registering some of the worst popularity ratings of any senior politician in Scotland, isn’t clear; perhaps he will explain that in due course. The important thing is that we all understand he has all the answers and Nicola Sturgeon got it all wrong. Read more Rebecca McQuillan Even if Harris wins, the worst of Trump is yet to come Will there ever be a time when women feel safe? His cunning plan for achieving a referendum? That the Scottish parliament should have legislated for a referendum to be held on whether the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold a referendum.
Confusing, slightly? Processy, off-putting? Yes, but it doesn’t matter apparently. Sharing his insights with us on the airwaves yesterday, Mr Salmond explained as if to a class of toddlers: “You’ve got to make it less attractive for Westminster to say no than to say yes.” You see? In his Holyrood mini-referendum, the people of Scotland would have voted yes, panic would have ensued in Downing Street and Theresa May’s signature on the dotted line of a second Edinburgh Agreement would meekly have followed.
Great idea, big guy. One problem: what if the Scottish government had lost this mini-referendum? What if your opponents said you were asking the people for the power to hold an independence poll every year, forever and ever, until you got the result you wanted – that this was the neverendum referendum? What if they painted you as the democracy-denier, for refusing to accept the 2014 result? What if they doubled down on the accusation that the SNP didn’t care about deteriorating hospitals and child poverty, just independence? What if you only succeeded in hardening opinion against independence among the decisive middle-grounders? Mr Salmond assumes he would have nailed this vote and achieved an independence referendum, but that’s quite an assumption. Let’s review what actually happened in the years after 2014.
Almost from the start of her period as leader, Nicola Sturgeon was wrestling with two problems in her pursuit of independence. The first was a stubborn lack of majority support for the proposition itself – something independence campaigners are apt to downplay. Alex Salmond blames Nicola Sturgeon for push for independence stalling (Image: free) But in addition to that, and probably more importantly, there was consistent public opposition to holding another referendum in the near future, not just among those who supported the union, but among many who backed independence.
Independence just wasn’t and still isn’t very high on the public’s list of priorities. Alex Salmond believes you therefore have to force the issue, but Nicola Sturgeon learned to her cost how risky it was to push voters on this, particularly after 2017. The Brexit vote had galvanised more support for independence in principle, but much of it was pretty soft.
Besides, the Brexit referendum had exposed as liars politicians who claimed destroying long-standing constitutional unions would do no damage. After two momentous and extremely divisive referenda in two years, people were wary and weary. In 2017, at the height of disgruntlement in Scotland about Brexit, Sturgeon said she would bring forward legislation for a second referendum.
It was a ruse to ratchet up pressure on Westminster to concede another vote, rather like Mr Salmond’s proposal. But it didn’t work. She approached the 2017 campaign with another independence referendum front and centre, only to find that campaigning on that platform was losing the SNP and independence support.
The SNP lost more than a third of their seats – 21 – amid a backlash against what had come to be seen as the SNP’s independence obsession. And guess who was one of the losers? Alex Salmond. If he had been leader championing a referendum-on-a-referendum, he’d likely have suffered a similar defeat.
It was a period of stalemate in Scottish politics . It might have looked superficially like a good moment to try and force a referendum, but it was not. A weary public just didn’t want to heap the uncertainty of an independence referendum on top of the uncertainty of Brexit.
That lack of enthusiasm for a second referendum hasn’t changed to this day. That’s why Westminster isn’t feeling the pressure. None of this features in Alex Salmond’s remake of Independence Day, but that’s alternative reality for you: you can ignore the bits of reality that don’t fit with your narrative, as your proposition can never be disproved.
Armchair generals are always victorious. Read more The madness of Police Scotland bosses knows no bounds Labour freebies row: don’t need specs to see who’s in wrong Alex Salmond may be a skilled opportunist but even he can’t force voters to back something they don’t want. And he lacked Ms Sturgeon’s popularity.
His bitter falling out with Nicola Sturgeon over the Scottish Government’s handling of harassment complaints against him, following his acquittal on sexual assault charges; claims by senior civil servants and others about what they claimed was 'bullying' behaviour as First Minister; and disquiet about his appearances on Kremlin mouthpiece Russia Today, significantly affected public opinion. Unpopular politicians don’t win campaigns. The only sure-fire route to independence is persuading a majority of voters that it’s a good idea.
How is being in the EU more in Scotland’s economic interests than being in the UK? How would trade barriers with our closest neighbours be managed? What would Scotland’s immigration policy look like? How would Scotland stay safe in an increasingly insecure world? Voters are not pawns to be played; they are power brokers to be persuaded. Neither Alex Salmond nor Nicola Sturgeon managed to persuade enough of them. What the Yes campaign need now is humility; that is how they will learn the lessons of failure.
They won’t find it in Alex Salmond. Rebecca McQuillan is a freelance journalist specialising in politics and Scottish affairs. She can be found on X at @BecMcQ.
