No comfort

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This new poll reported in The National (Holyrood polling shows SNP out in front and Reform UK tie with Labour) will certainly be welcomed by the SNP loyalists. Not so much by the SNP haters who fantasise about the party being wiped out at next year's election. Which was never going to happen, of course. But that's kinda the point of a fantasy, isn't it? It's how you make things happen in your head that can never happen in the real world. Which is fine! Until emotional excess cause you to lose sight of the difference between what's occurring in your imagination and what's going on in the real world. Which is the problem with both SNP loyalists and SNP haters. Both so desperately want their imagined scenario to be true that they superimpose the fantasy over reality, losing sight of the latter while revelling in the former. Poor afflicted souls!

Swinney will be smirking such as to risk the top half of his head falling off. And the rest of the leadership cabal will be in similar jeopardy. Projected seat losses have fallen to 6 from 11 the last time I checked. No doubt this will be presented as proof that John Swinney is on the right track and that his 'independence strategy' is being approved by voters. Which rather spikes any conference resolution proposing a different strategy. The branches supporting those resolutions will not be too pleased.

The people who will be as seriously unhappy as ever are the Scottish nationalists who have sense enough to know that the fluctuations of polling and the relative placings of the parties means nothing in relation to Scotland's cause. It remains in straits as dire as ever. For those who perceive the need to restore Scotland's independence as a matter of the utmost urgency, there is nothing to celebrate. It is a very long time since the realist section of the independence movement has had anything to celebrate.

Realists know that the election and electoral fortunes of the parties are totally irrelevant since the independence movement doesn't have a horse in this race. The independence movement lost its party-political and parliamentary arm when Alex Salmond resigned as First Minister and leader of the SNP. In the intervening eleven years, no party has stepped into the role that the SNP leadership chose to abandon. The independence movement remains bereft of a party-political and parliamentary arm. Therefore, it has no way to connect with effective political power. As things stand, no voting strategy in the coming election can change that because John Swinney is not offering to return the SNP to its former role and no party is proposing to be the new 'party of independence'.

Realists know that as things stand, there is no win for Scotland's cause in the 2026 election. There cannot be. Because no party standing candidates represents that cause. Scottish nationalists like me are left with only the hope that Scotland's cause survives the SNP leadership's betrayal and the abject failure of Alba Party to step into the breach.

The polls being the best information we have, we must continue to assume the SNP will be the largest party by far in the next parliament with approximately the same number of seats as the four British parties combined (Labour, Reform UK, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat). Still short of a working majority. But with indications that the Greens will increase their seats from 8 to 11, the scene looks set for a functioning SNP minority administration.

Which means John Swinney won't have the mandate he has said would trigger another Section 30 request. That doesn't stop him lodging such a request. But it also doesn't stop doing so being an act of treachery.

I know there are idiots out there who will look at this realistic appraisal of the current polling situation and squawk about me 'supporting the SNP'. Which I have not done for several years. But that's the nature of the SNP haters' fantasy. Their minds are so warped they cannot distinguish between a statement of fact and advocacy.

I know there are other idiots out there who will react with spluttering indignation to my account of John Swinney's 'independence strategy'. Again, I am only pointing out facts. I outline that 'strategy' exactly as Swinney does. I get the information from the resolution to be presented to conference in October under the names of John Swinney and Keith Brown (Revealed: The full text of SNP's independence strategy - The National 1 August). And from the former's column in the Daily Record on 28 July (Here is my strategy for the SNP securing a second independence referendum).

There is no comfort in these polls for anyone who is both a Scottish nationalist and a realist. No comfort whatever.