On the 18th of September 2014, 1,617,989 Scottish voters felt so motivated that they turned out at polling stations all over Scotland to vote YES to independence for their nation. In May of this year, at the Holyrood election, the SNP polled 877,077 votes. What happened to the 740,912 pro-independence voters? Every election since Nicola Sturgeon’s famous statement made in April 2015 has seen the number of independence voters remain at home rather than support a devolution prospectus promoted by the SNP.

Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Nicola Sturgeon, has told ITV’s The Agenda she believes Scotland will be an independent country “one day” but insisted that a vote for her party “is not about independence.”

https://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-04-13/sturgeon-a-vote-for-snp-is-not-a-vote-for-independence/

The repercussions of that statement a few weeks before the UK General Election possibly cost us the 3 seats out of 59 that remained in unionist hands. At that election the SNP garnered 1,454,436 votes in Scotland; the cause had already lost 163,553 votes!

By 2017, more and more Scots came to the realisation that the SNP of Sturgeon was a very different party to that of the Salmond party. This was highlighted in the 2017 GE when the SNP were delivered a very telling rebuke from the Scottish voters. The SNP vote at that time was 977,569 votes, down by 476,867 votes from just two years previously, and 640,420 down from  2014.

By the time of the UKGE of 2024, the number of pro-independence supporters staying at home was growing. On this occasion, the SNP polled 851,897 votes, down from 2017 by a further 125,672 votes. Bear in mind in 2017 the SNP took a huge hit in both votes and seats; therefore, the 2024 election was catastrophic for both the SNP and more importantly the cause.

The 2019 UKGE saw something of an SNP revival, and their vote and seat numbers both grew. In that election, the SNP vote rose to 1,242,380 and they gained 13 Westminster seats. To explain this upsurge is simple: “it’s the constitution, silly!” Sturgeon during the campaign led with the slogan “Stronger for Scotland”; during that election, every SNP spokesperson uttered the famous words of Ian Blackford “Scotland will not be dragged out of the EU against its will” Sturgeon promised a second independence referendum in 2020.  This motivated the pro-independence supporters to turn out and give the SNP a huge victory.

Sadly, this turned out to be a blatant lie by Sturgeon. On the 31st January, just a month after the campaign, she made a speech in Edinburgh where she admitted that Scotland would indeed be dragged out of the EU and there would not be a second independence referendum in 2020! That was the final straw for many independence- supporting SNP voters. What followed only increased the divisions in the YES movement: the conspiracy to falsely imprison Alex Salmond, the promotion of queer theory, the Hate Crime Bill, the demonising of the pro-independence media and AUOB marchers. It all further eroded the trust and, ultimately, the votes for the SNP.

A similar pattern emerges in elections at Holyrood. This year was the lowest vote for the SNP since 2007. It doesn’t take a genius to work out exactly why this has been happening. Indeed, if you look at opinion polls over the past four to five years the evidence is there; those in favour of independence have been consistently 50%+ and always ahead of the unionist naysayers. At the same time, the SNP vote has been 30-35%. A 15 to 20%+ difference in support.

This week the voters gave the SNP yet another message in the two Edinburgh Council by-election contests. These elections were to replace two SNP councillors that have won seats at Holyrood. These on paper were safe SNP seats; they were trounced with one seat going to the Greens and the other to the British Labour Party. A party on life support no less.

These horrific losses came on the same week that the SNP leadership blocked any debate on routes to independence at their annual conference. As they say, every action has an equal and opposite reaction; in this case, it resulted in turnouts of 20% and SNP humiliation at the count.

In the 1992 US Presidential election, James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist, came up with a now famous phrase: “It’s the economy, stupid.” He had said this because, George H Bush’s campaign team wanted to talk about anything else except the economy. That though, was the most important topic to the US voters. Having the economy front and centre in his campaign resulted in Clinton winning a landslide victory.

Therein lies a lesson for the SNP and it’s strategists:  It’s all about the constitution, if the SNP do not wake up to that fact and react accordingly, they will go the same way as George H Bush and lose heavily. They might also want to acquaint themselves with the UK GE of 1918 in Ireland and see the fate of the IPP. Like the SNP for decades they seemed invincible in Ireland. The Irish voters of 1918 shattered that myth and sent the IPP into oblivion.

History teaches us lessons, if we are willing to heed them———over to you SNP. You may not want to talk about or action anything that advances the cause of independence, be warned that is the largest motivation for Scottish voters. The numbers dont lie; they are not motivated by school bags for kids or reducing health boards from 14 to 2. My fraternal advice,given freely, grant the wishes of 40 of your branches and allow an amendment at conference that discusses routes and strategies to independence, alternatively you can face oblivion at every election hereon.

This is the central topic of discussion by my panel of ; Eva Comrie, Phil Boswell and Terry Howson. Please like, watch and share.