Does Humza Yousaf's new independence strategy stand a chance?

The Scottish National Party (SNP) will claim a "mandate" for a new independence referendum if it wins a majority of Scottish seats rather than votes at the next general election, in a change to its independence strategy.

Delegates at the SNP annual conference in Aberdeen voted overwhelmingly to back a motion proposed by First Minister Humza Yousaf and MP Stephen Flynn, which means the party will demand a new referendum if it wins a simple majority of Scottish constituencies at Westminster – 29 seats. 

In the 2019 general election, the SNP won 48 seats out of a possible 57. 

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"A majority of seats is a victory, plain and simple," Yousaf told the SNP conference. "If we win that majority, that will be our mandate to begin negotiations with the UK government" on how to achieve independence, he said.

A struggle for 'coherent' strategy

Earlier this year, the SNP abandoned the strategy devised by their former leader Nicola Sturgeon, who said the party would need to win more than 50% of Scottish votes in a general election for there to be a mandate to open talks with the UK government.

Since then, the party has been "struggling to come up with a coherent plan" to lay out the path to a new referendum vote after losing the 2014 referendum by 55% to 45%, said the Financial Times.

The new strategy is a "U-turn" for "the flip-flop Minister of Scotland", argued the Daily Mail, and a watering-down of his previous plan based on the SNP winning the most Scottish seats in Westminster. But in order to stave off the "threat of a major defeat" on the first day of the SNP conference, Yousaf agreed to an amendment to his motion which changed his proposal to a "majority" of seats.

The proposal means that "even if the SNP loses a lot of seats to Labour" in the next general election – as it is expected to do – the SNP will still claim a mandate for a new independence vote and trigger negotiations to "give democratic effect" to Scotland becoming an independent country, said Eleni Courea in Politico's London Playbook. In other words, "it will ask for a referendum that neither Rishi Sunak nor Keir Starmer is very likely to grant."

A vote for 'constitutional chaos and confrontation'

That the SNP motion is "nonsense hardly needs to be said", said Iain Macwhirter in The Spectator. The party would soon find that it "has no one to negotiate with", he continued. "The UK government would rightly point out that in a general election, voters are choosing a government in Westminster, not issuing a declaration of independence. You can't negotiate with an empty chair."

And while Yousaf may believe that he can turn next year's general election to a legitimate referendum by stating on "page one, line one" of the SNP manifesto that a vote for his party is a vote for independence, a "better way to lose support could scarcely be imagined", continued Macwhirter. It is "effectively telling the Scottish people that a vote for the SNP is a vote to plunge the country into constitutional chaos and confrontation".

The SNP's new independence strategy – the fourth this year – could leave the party in the "absurd" position of arguing for independence despite potentially losing more than a dozen seats in the next election, said political editor Paul Hutcheon in the Daily Record. The SNP leader knows that "a short-term strategy based on winning a 'majority' of seats is no substitute for turning independence into the settled will of Scots".

Indeed, Yousaf's challenge now is to "provide answers to the tricky questions that dog the economics of independence" and "accept independence is a long-term proposition, not something that will be achieved in the next decade", said Hutcheon.

A likely Labour government in 2024 will kick the question of independence "further into touch". Independence has "drifted off the radar of Scottish politics and Yousaf's job is to ready supporters for this new reality".