Nicola Sturgeon’s nationalists remain politically ascendant, but the Scottish public conversation is shifting on to material choices that challenge the SNP’s priorities. That’s all to the good
“We propose,” said the Scottish government’s 2013 white paper on independence, “that Scotland’s independence day should be on 24 March 2016.” Well, that day is now upon us, but there will be no lowering and raising of flags on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle tomorrow, and there is no new seat at the United Nations table between Saudi Arabia and Senegal for what Alex Salmond hoped would be the world’s newest nation state.
Tomorrow nevertheless marks the end of the 2011 Scottish parliament’s term and the start of the 2016 campaign to elect a new government at Holyrood. This may not be a historic day in the way that the sundering of the 1707 union would have been, but it is an important milestone all the same.