\n The two together illustrate the paradox at the heart of this election: that a party in power for nearly two decades, a party with a decidedly lacklustre record, is somehow still on course to emerge dominant, perhaps so dominant that they won\u2019t need any other parties to get votes through parliament.\n<\/p>\n
\n The SNP<\/a> have been an OK government with a firm commitment to social justice. They have had their proud achievements, particularly in trying to tackle child poverty, but on the bread-and-butter electoral issues for which they are solely responsible the prevailing mood is disappointment. Long-suffering resignation pervades the national psyche. Difficulties getting GP and hospital appointments, the diminished standing of Scotland\u2019s education system, health inequalities, drugs deaths and overbudget, overdue infrastructure projects, can\u2019t be palmed off on the UK government. The party promises yet more spending, but with a \u00a35 billion budget deficit now looming over the next three years \u2013 a black hole of the SNP\u2019s own making \u2013 cuts, higher taxes, broken promises or a combination of those all seem much more likely.\n<\/p>\n \n Read more by Rebecca McQuillan<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n Support for the SNP has dropped by around 12 per cent in national polls since 2022 so a good result for them won\u2019t be a sign of wild voter enthusiasm. Other factors are at work. One is tactical voting in head-to-head contests with Reform, which could result in gains for the SNP. The party may also benefit from being a contender for seats in the Borders, following a collapse of Tory support there. But above all, they are helped by the enduring constitutional question and the SNP\u2019s strong command of the pro-independence vote, contrasting sharply with the disastrous four-way split of the pro-UK vote.\n<\/p>\n \n John Swinney<\/a> has been talking up his strategy on independence for months, insisting that only an outright SNP majority will count as a mandate for another referendum, drawing on the precedent set by Alex Salmond<\/a> in 2011.\n<\/p>\n \n At first, that seemed like a shrewd tactic. It would shore up the SNP\u2019s vote in what looked like being their toughest election in years while muting criticism from SNP fundamentalists who doubt Mr Swinney\u2019s passion for independence.\n<\/p>\n \n An SNP majority, if it ever materialised, would put the UK Government<\/a> in check: how could it refuse a referendum when it had previously accepted the moral weight of that result and signed on the dotted line? But at the same time, an outright majority would be hard to achieve and therefore \u2013 helpfully \u2013 Mr Swinney would probably never have to make good on his strategy. Why would he want to? With support for independence bobbing up and down around 50 per cent, with the global security picture giving voters the heebee jeebies and with Labour running the UK instead of the Tories, the conditions are not there for a decisive Yes win. But Mr Swinney can still talk up a referendum, reaping the electoral rewards. Ingenious stuff.\n<\/p>\n \n Well, sometimes politicians are too clever by half. Mr Swinney\u2019s manoeuvrings could be about to unleash Brexit-style misery on Scotland.\n<\/p>\n \n If \u2013 and it\u2019s still a towering \u201cif\u201d \u2013 the SNP does scrape a majority of one or two on Thursday (different mega-polls have come to differing conclusions on this), he\u2019ll find himself in the same position as David Cameron in 2015. Having used the promise of a referendum as a tactic to placate his internal critics and shore up the vote in a parliamentary election, he may believe he can control what follows.\n<\/p>\n \n That\u2019s what David Cameron thought \u2013 but he lost the vote and lost his job.\n<\/p>\n \n Perhaps the worst part is this: whichever way any second referendum went, Yes or No, the result would certainly be close and therefore bitterly contested \u2013 just like Brexit. That was Mr Cameron\u2019s great legacy \u2013 leaving the country painfully divided \u2013 and it would be Mr Swinney\u2019s too. Because if one thing is clear it\u2019s this: there is no settled will for independence and there is no sign of impatience among voters for another referendum. Pushing for that vote will just reveal how badly split we are.\n<\/p>\n \n Let\u2019s say for a moment that Mr Swinney secured a referendum \u2013 that Keir Starmer<\/a>, a man with a deep reverence for legal precedent, agreed to give Holyrood<\/a> the right to hold one and a date was set. What would happen next?\n<\/p>\n \n We all know because we\u2019ve been through referendums twice in the last 15 years. Enmity between the two sides. Complex questions reduced to a binary choice. Downsides dismissed, questionable potential benefits pumped up on steroids and paraded like prize-fighters before the crowds. The boundary between informed opinion and wishful thinking honoured at first but, as polling day approached, jostled aside and then trampled to nothing under a grotesque stampede for votes. People goaded to lend their support when rational argument failed.\n<\/p>\n \n For me, one of the most distasteful aspects of the independence referendum in 2014 was the way Yes tried to elide left-leaning communitarian politics<\/a> and support for independence. It was not subtly done. A deliberate attempt was made to equate voting No with being a \u201cTory\u201d. Our supposedly polite national conversation was reduced at the end to a slanging match.\n<\/p>\n \n John Swinney has insisted that only an outright SNP majority will count as a mandate for another independence referendum (Image: PA)\n<\/p>\n