Lorna Slater, coleader of the Scottish Greens thinks that Scottish independence is inevitable and if there were a referendum tomorrow Yes would win. What Slater appears to be unaware of is that if there were ever to be a second referendum on independence the question would obviously not have a Yes/No answer. The precedent of the EU referendum makes that clear. While support for independence is around 50% on the 2014 question it falls considerably if the question is reworded as “Should Scotland leave the UK or remain part of the UK”. Would the SNP/Greens win a referendum on that question tomorrow? That would be much less likely.

But we are not going to have a referendum tomorrow. We would only have a referendum after a reasonably long campaign that explored all of the issues involved. The questions that the SNP was unable to answer in 2014 still await a convincing solution. Even so it was much easier to come up with an argument for independence with both the UK and Scotland in the EU. Brexit has changed everything and neither the SNP nor the Greens have an answer to the issue of a hard regulatory border between Scotland and England, nor to Scottish goods having to pay tariffs to enter the English market. Whatever power Scotland generates by wind, unfortunately has to go through England if it is to be sold to anyone else.