Almost 2,000 people stood to applaud Alex Salmond in Perth's Concert Hall on Saturday, each thankful in their way to a man who has been a dominant figure for more than two decades.
Salmond looked emotional, feeling perhaps a little out of place as one of the crowd rather than the front man. However, the reality, cruel though it may be, is that the Scottish National Party has already begun to move on.
During his career, one that is far from finished even if he has relinquished the leadership, Salmond brought the independence movement in Scotland to the edge of the promised land. But he is a divisive figure too.
His successor, Nicola Sturgeon, though long-established, is seeking to build ties with those who refused Salmond's message because they loathed him.
Sturgeon, who became SNP leader on Friday, told the audience she was four days away from taking over as Scotland’s first ever woman first minister.
“I know Scotland doesn’t have the fondest of memories of the last woman to wield power in these islands,” she said, dryly, “but where Mrs Thatcher divided society, I want to do the opposite.”
Two months on, the language used by the SNP when it talks about the referendum illustrates the pain still felt over the defeat, despite all of the protestations about accepting the result.
A film covering the political life of Salmond told delegates on Friday that Scotland “fell short”. Voters had been bullied, threatened into voting No, said a succession of speakers. “They were not No voters, they were Not Yet voters”, one delegate declared to applause, though the far from original phrase profoundly irritates many of those who did vote No.
Extra members
Nevertheless, some of those who did vote No would vote Yes if asked again. The SNP has been surprised by the turn events have taken since September: particularly the 60,000 extra members that have joined the party.
It has been helped too by David Cameron's now-abandoned linkage of plans to grant more powers to the Holyrood parliament with more for England. Equally, Scottish Labour continues its gift-giving to the SNP: its leader in Scotland, Johann Lamont, condemned the party leadership in London for treating its organisation north of the border as "a branch office".
Even a pledge that Royal Navy frigates would be built at shipyards on the Clyde has been dented by loose talk from first sea lord George Zambellas, who told a US defence magazine that construction abroad was possible.
Zambellas was quickly sat on by defence secretary Michael Fallon, but the quotes have been endlessly replayed by a Yes camp that is determined to poke at every weakness.
The pledge of extra powers made to woo wavering voters before the September 18th referendum is predictably proving complicated, though the SNP will condemn the outcome as inadequate no matter what it is.
The party, driven by the next election, is urging Scottish voters to abandon their traditional support for Labour in the House of Commons to ensure that Scotland’s negotiating hand is strengthened.
Weak Scottish Labour
Sturgeon and the SNP believe they can destroy Labour in Scotland – where it currently holds 41 of the 57 Commons seats – because of the turmoil within the party. Scots, even if they vote SNP for Holyrood elections, have largely voted Labour in Westminster contests, accepting that the choice there is between Labour or the Tories.
The SNP is saying the landscape has changed: it will not back the Conservatives, but it would be prepared to support a Labour-led coalition on a case-by-case basis.
“I ask you to think about this,” Sturgeon said. “Think about how much more we could win for Scotland from a Westminster Labour government if they had to depend on SNP votes.” Urging Scots of all political persuasions ‘to lend’ their votes to the SNP, she said:
“Vote SNP and the message we will carry to Westminster on your behalf is this: Scotland’s interests will not be sidelined. Not now, not ever.”
An opinion poll on Saturday put Labour – once a dominant force in Scottish politics – on just 29 per cent support, compared with 42 per cent for the SNP.
However, the argument is flawed. The SNP has not voted for years in House of Commons votes that concern England only, so Labour could not command a Westminster majority if Scottish seats are the difference between a majority or not.
Enemies have coalesced before, but this union would be especially difficult to bring about because surviving Scottish Labour MPs – predictions vary on how many there would be – would do everything possible to stop it happening.
Furthermore , more influence for Scotland in the Commons as a result of the SNP abandoning its no-vote rule on English issues, would fuel ever-growing demands within England for a greater say in its affairs.
Second referendum
None of this is news to the SNP, of course, since the objective of the offer is not to help Miliband form a government in London but rather to create circumstances that would provoke the holding of a second referendum. Pressure inside the party for a date will mount as time passes. Former deputy leader Jim Sillars says a majority for the SNP in the 2016 Holyrood election would be enough to declare independence, without a referendum.
This is a minority view, but the 60,000-plus people who have joined the SNP’s ranks – including close to 800 people on Saturday morning alone – have not signed their membership papers for the question to be long delayed.
And if the Tories won next year’s election and held the promised EU membership referendum, a move that would prompt fury in Scotland, Sturgeon would move quickly to exploit the gaps.
However, if an obvious casus belli is not offered by London, the SNP leader would want to move slowly. Under existing legislation, the Scottish Parliament cannot dictate the holding of a referendum, because this is a matter for Westminster alone – it "lent" authority to Holyrood to hold this year's independence vote.
So while the question could be put to voters a second time, it could not a third time. Consequently, Sturgeon would want to have a strong majority before she moves.
