It's time to see if the polls are right.
Previously: the voting megathread
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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They bring that up regularly, but it's a false equivalence. At the time of the independence vote it was absolutely true to claim that voting No was true best way to stay in the EU. There was no expectation, none, from anyone that Brexit was on the way. So, at the time, if Europe was the issue then voting to stay in the UK was the logical choice to make.
As for now - well, Swinney (and before him Sturgeon herself) was talking in terms of winning a majority of seats being a mandate for opening independence talks. That's clearly nonsense, since a majority of seats is possible with a fairly small plurality of votes. And, it's looking like it's a moot point anyway, since the SNP seems to have taken a right good kicking this time round.
So Sturgeon is probably not bringing this up tonight because she'd look ridiculous to do so given the (apparent) results in Scotland tonight. If this was a referendum on independence as she and Swinney have suggested, then the result would appear to be a solid No.
According to the conversation tonight, not even a majority of seats, but a plurality.
Anyway you're absolutely right that given the tact that they had chosen it's hard to read today's projected result as anything other than a failure. But I was speaking more about when the conversation turned away from the direct outcome of today's results and more towards the general longer-term future prospects for independence. I don't recognise any of their other panellists (pic attached below), but the guy on Sturgeon's left (camera right) and to a lesser extent the other panellists were making reference to the fact that the previous referendum failed and how no future government would ever allow another referendum (with the exception of if Labour relied on the SNP to form a minority government, which was thought possible a year ago). That's when it would have seemed obvious to me for Sturgeon to point out the false promise that led to the result in 2014.