[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Chris

55% of us voted for unionist parties last night. Despite the gales of hot air coming out of Nicola Sturgeon, nothing very much has changed.

After the 2014 referendum there was a nationalist spasm in Scottish politics and the Nats ended up with 56 seats. That clearly over corrected itself in 2017, and they lost around 20. Now they’ve got roughly half of those back, but don’t let the first past the post system or the distribution of those votes fool you. A referendum is a one person, one vote, across the whole country, no constituencies. So the actual proportion of votes for the different parties last night tells us something useful and shouldn’t be ignored.

Boris is not going to grant a section 30 order while he’s focused on Brexit. He has no reason to do so. Sturgeon knows this. She will be especially shrill over the coming months but really, it is now all about the 2010 Holyrood election. If they can get re-elected with an unambiguous manifesto commitment to another referendum (I.e. not one caveated with comments about significant political changes) then it will be hard to say no. I could tolerate (just about) a second referendum in 2024. Quebec held a second one a decade on, the separatists there lost it, very narrowly, but the result was the effective death of the separatist movement as an effective political force. That I think is what we have to aim for in Scotland now, assuming of course the SNP aren’t unseated in 2021 - their domestic record on the big devolved ministries in health, education and policing are all absolutely dire, and of course next year there is going to be a very embarrassing trial of their former leader on some pretty lurid charges.

She'll follow the yellow brick road but will be foiled by the wizard of Bozz