However, an even better reason for a government that wants Scotland to stay in the union to go for a referendum soon is that it’s unlikely they’ll ever have a better chance of winning it.
Moreover, a second rejection would be fatal to the ‘inevitability’ narrative the SNP are pushing and be calamitous for their already rather shaky reputation for competence.
The fundamental assumption seems to be that the Union is both worth saving and capable of being saved. I have my doubts. It's perfectly plausible to argue that democracy demands that a second vote be held, but if the ultimate purpose is to salvage the established order then the Tories are on a hiding to nothing. Lose it and the game's up; win it, however, and still nothing is resolved.
Defeat in the first referendum failed to do serious damage to the SNP. If they lost the second one, the campaign for the third would begin immediately. The Scottish Government may be crap, but it has a base of at least 40% of the electorate that has made up its mind that it wants to be rid of the English and it faces a hopelessly divided and utterly woeful collection of opposition parties. They'll win all the subsequent elections, and invent excuses for insisting on more referendums in roughly decennial cycles, until one of them yields the result that they want.
I think that losing a third referendum would do major damage to the SNP, perhaps even a formal split. While the effect of 2014 on the 2015 GE was an SNP landslide, losing the 1978 one put the SNP on the slide for 30 years. I think 202X would be more like the 1978 one.
Indeed, I think that is why Ms Sturgeon is a little cautious about it. Losing 202X would be the end of her, as 2014 was for Salmond.
The interesting thing is what would happen next. Certainly there would be a fundamentalist Independence party, but a substantial body may return to being more conventional Social Democratic party, albeit heavily devolutionist. That might even be SLAB.
There was no referendum in 1978 - it took place on 1st March 1979.. A majority of those voting did support Devolution but the required 40% of the elecorate threshold was not reached. The subsequent SNP collapse at the May 79 GE is likely to have owed quite a bit to the decision to support the Tories in bringing down the Callaghan Government. - with former Labour voters who had switched to the SNP in 1974 returning to Labour.
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