John Ferry

This is the time of year when economists and political scientists make their predictions for the upcoming 12 months. Will we finally see the back of Covid and economic recovery? Will Boris Johnson survive as Prime Minister? In Scotland, the politerati are speculating on what Nicola Sturgeon's next move on the constitution will be. It seems likely the Scottish government will introduce a bill, without the agreement of Westminster, on a second independence referendum. This is expected to be challenged at the UK Supreme Court. The most likely outcome of that is the referendum bill failing on the grounds that it goes beyond the constitutional powers of the devolved parliament — a UK Supreme Court case earlier this year reinforced the view this will be the most probable conclusion.

‘I hope the sterlingisation zombie now has a stake through the heart,’ tweeted SNP delegate Tim Rideout after getting his resolution on ‘The Scottish Reserve Bank Establishment Bill’ passed at his party’s conference last weekend. Rideout sits on the SNP’s policy committee and is part of a faction challenging the SNP leadership’s plan for Scotland to informally use the pound for a prolonged period after secession – a policy known as sterlingisation. This faction wants to see Scotland establish a new currency, controlled by a new Scottish central bank, as soon as possible after exit day. In his conference speech, Rideout was blunt.

Less than a quarter of Scots believe Scotland is likely to leave the UK within the next five years, according to a new poll. The poll also shows that secession does not command majority support. As we approach the second anniversary of the start of the pandemic, it seems getting back to normal is more important to most people than the break up of the UK. Managing to holiday abroad over the next two years is likely to be a more popular aim than another referendum. Seemingly disconnected from that reality though are Scotland’s nationalist parties, which last week produced – in conjunction with the National newspaper and a separatist campaigning organisation called Believe in Scotland – an eight-page tabloid-style pull-out designed to make the case for secession.

It was only a matter of time. When the Scottish Green party entered government alongside the SNP in August, it was clear Nicola Sturgeon would use the party as a shield against her questionable record and stance on the environment. The surprise is that it happened so quickly and so blatantly. This week we had the extraordinary situation of the Scottish Greens attacking Greenpeace for daring to push the First Minister to explicitly come out against exploitation of the Cambo oil field off Shetland. Scottish Green co-leader Patrick Harvie said Greenpeace was unfairly criticising Sturgeon and is ‘not particularly politically active in Scotland’.

This month we’ve seen the UK government introduce temporary visas for butchers after farmers were forced to slaughter healthy pigs, the extension of cabotage rights (whereby foreign lorry drivers can do additional pick-up-and-drop off jobs within a country) and a move to replace Brexit’s controversial Northern Ireland protocol. Supply chain problems can’t all be pinned on Brexit – and you could argue endlessly about which factor, Covid or Brexit, is dominant in the disruption we’re seeing – but most people would agree that leaving the EU single market and customs union has not helped matters. Which brings us to the issue of a Scottish exit from the UK (Scexit).

When he’s not falling off his scooter like he’s auditioning for the role of Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther franchise, the gaffe-prone Scottish health minister, Humza Yousaf, is mired in a multitude of Scottish NHS crises. This month saw Britain’s armed forces parachuted in to prop up the Scottish Ambulance Service. Nicola Sturgeon was forced to call on the military after distressed patients had to wait hours, and sometimes even days, for an ambulance – one of the most harrowing cases involved a frail Glasgow pensioner who died after waiting 40 hours for an ambulance to arrive. Dig into the government statistics and the scale of the crisis facing the Scottish NHS is clear.

Scottish civil servants are to start work on a 'detailed prospectus' for independence so the Scottish government can hold another referendum 'when the Covid crisis has passed', Nicola Sturgeon announced earlier this month. The irony of this – coming just days before the Office for National Statistics reported that the percentage of Scots testing positive in a single week for Covid-19 equated to around one in 45 people – was lost on the First Minister. These things happen when you're busy fighting to free your people from the tyranny of liberal democracy and free society in one of the richest places on earth.

'Now, as I've hopefully made clear throughout all of my remarks, the North Sea will continue to produce oil for decades to come. It still contains up to 20 billion barrels of recoverable reserves. Our primary aim – and I want to underline and emphasis this – our primary aim is to maximise economic recovery of those reserves.' The words are from a speech made in June 2017, a few months after the Paris Agreement that aimed to limit climate change came into effect. A speech by a pro-oil Conservative, or perhaps the head of an industry group working on behalf of the oil sector? No. They are, in fact, the words of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaking at the Oil and Gas UK Conference that year.

It’s confirmed. The co-leaders of the Scottish Greens, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, have become junior ministers in Nicola Sturgeon’s government. Harvie is Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights, while Slater is Minister for Green skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity. Of the two, Slater’s is the more interesting role as it includes green industrial strategy, an area where Scotland has continued to fail under the SNP. If Slater is serious about turning this around then she should make her first ministerial outing a trip to the north-east of England to see how green industrial strategy should be done.

What’s more important to supporters of Scottish secession, achieving the break-up of Britain or seeing Scotland successfully transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions? It is a difficult question for environmentally conscious independence supporters to face, but face it they must, for it is becoming increasingly clear that Scotland cutting itself out of the UK will see England, Wales and Northern Ireland power ahead to net zero while Scotland gets left behind. This month saw the publication of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) latest fiscal risks report. The bi-annual document identifies and models potential shocks to the public finances.

The announcement reeked of desperation. Nicola Sturgeon is 'delighted' that the SNP National Executive Committee has approved her nomination of retired MSP and party grandee Mike Russell as 'political director of the HQ independence unit'. The statement, put out on Twitter last week, aimed to give a sense of momentum and industrious activity: Russell at the head of an elite squad of Nationalist campaigners who will deliver on promises of another referendum.  The appointment of Russell is not so much a sign of progress for the Nationalists as confirmation that their project to break up the UK has stalled. It follows the resignation, after just a few months in post, of Marco Biagi as campaign strategist for the SNP's 'independence taskforce', which was set up in January.