How Humza Yousaf could take advantage of Labour

The campaign for Scottish independence is at an impasse. Humza Yousaf used the SNP’s conference in Dundee to set out his party’s latest strategy for achieving statehood for Scotland. That strategy isn’t all that different from what the party faithful has heard before: keep winning elections, keep up the pressure on Westminster, and sooner or later something will happen.

The problem with this tartan Micawberism is that something has been going to happen for rather a long time. Here is a list, by no means exhaustive, of events that were supposed to shift the dial on independence: the SNP’s commanding wins in the 2015 and 2019 general elections; its victories at Holyrood in 2016 and 2021; the UK’s vote for Brexit; the arrival of Boris Johnson in No. 10; the pandemic; partygate; the cost-of-living crisis; the decision to block SNP gender reforms.

Because UK Labour has very little to say to Scotland, it fills the silence with vague talk about further devolution of powers or other political jiggery-pokery

Certainly, the polling has fluctuated over time.