Is the SNP’s Brexit strategy paying off?

Ursula von der Leyen quoted TS Eliot’s poem ‘Little Gidding’ in her press conference today: ‘What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end, is to make a beginning.’ The free trade deal between the UK and the EU marks beginnings (new arrangements on commerce, fishing and security cooperation) and ends (the single market, free movement, Erasmus), but what we can’t yet be sure of is which category Scottish independence falls into. We might glean the answer from the 2,000-page agreement when the text is published but it is more likely that the question will remain open for some time.

In the orthodox reading – the one offered by the SNP, pro-Union Remainers, academia and most commentators – the conclusion of the UK’s membership of the EU represents the beginning of Scotland’s transition to independence. In truth, the starting gun was fired two decades ago when Labour introduced devolution, giving institutional validation to nationalist grievances and creating rival seats of power just begging to be captured by separatist parties to unravel the country from within.