Tom Gordon: SNP's Indyref2 delay over Ukraine won't be its last

The Westminster leader set a hare running that London would have to foot the bill, forcing Nicola Sturgeon to give the notion both barrels and admit that, no, Holyrood would pay for it.

This knack for loose talk has greatly endeared Mr Blackford to my profession, as well as to his party’s opponents.

But it is not just the gaffes we should heed, and what they reveal about behind-the-scenes confusion and unpreparedness.

Mr Blackford is also an outrider for the First Minister, testing the water before the party commits itself to a course of action.

What Mr Blackford hints at today, Ms Sturgeon may well confirm tomorrow. His comments about a second independence referendum are in the latter category.

In a weekend interview with the PA news agency, Mr Blackford suggested that Indyref2, which is in theory pencilled in for 2023, might have to be delayed because of the war in Ukraine.

“I want that referendum to take place in a timely manner,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “To those that are expressing a desire for us to get on with our job, of course, we will do so, but we have to be mindful of where we are.

“We have to play the ball where it lies just now and the only thing that I’m focusing on today is Ukraine.”

To some in the Yes movement, this was more proof of SNP posturing over a second vote - the party is seen as forever proclaiming it is nigh, yet never does the hard graft to deliver and win the thing.

With the pandemic receding, the SNP - powerless to hold a legal referendum, unable to answer the big questions left over from 2014, and the nation divided - now needs a new excuse to delay, and so is hiding behind the Ukrainian crisis.

The Alba party called it surrender. “This is just the latest attempt to justify the total inactivity of the SNP in pushing for independence,” said Alba deputy leader Kenny MacAskill, accusing Mr Blackford of promising “a referendum the following year on an annual basis for quite some time”.

There is substance to this charge. The SNP has promised a vote that never comes so often it is teetering on self-parody.

It is also hard to imagine the party being so patient and restrained if polls showed Scots were red hot for independence.

Would Mr Blackford or Ms Sturgeon really say that, despite independence being within touching distance, they were willing to forfeit it for the sake of Ukraine? That they would delay a vote without knowing for how long or whether their moment would ever come again? That the self-proclaimed party of Scotland would put Scotland’s destiny a firm second?

If the polls were overwhelmingly in the SNP’s favour, it’s surely more likely it would argue that a vote for independence was a democratic necessity.

It would show President Putin that democracy cannot be denied, that the will of the people will prevail, that Scotland’s voice will be heard round the world etc.

But as that’s not what the polls say, the SNP are stressing caution. Already looking for a reason to prevaricate, they have found one - another one after Covid.

And yet, while this may be true, it is also true that both the pandemic and the war are huge, terrible events making political business-as-usual almost impossible.

Yes, the SNP leadership already want to delay Indyref2 because they haven’t fixed their prospectus and fear losing the vote and then losing power, but the war is a very sound reason for delaying it.

And not just for reasons of decorum.

The war would add a whole new dimension to an independence campaign.

The SNP would be branded Putin’s useful idiots, trying to break up the UK at a time that would suit Russia to a tee.

They also would be accused of undermining Nato by putting a question mark over one of its nuclear members by demanding Trident’s exit from the Clyde.

Fairly or unfairly, the opponents of independence would argue it was not merely unwise, as in 2014, but naive, dangerous and even unpatriotic in light of Russian aggression. Instead of Better Together, we’d have Safer Together.

The news yesterday that a Putin apologist who sees independence as a way to hurt the UK had infiltrated the Alba party would be dragged up ad infinitum.

For years, the SNP have been hoping that events would help them achieve their founding goal. That something would turn up to help them cross the winning line and secure independence.

For a while, events were in their favour - UK Tory governments, an unprecedented Holyrood majority, opponents in disarray, Brexit and Boris Johnson. But now the run of events seems against them.

The worst of it that, like the pandemic, the crisis in Ukraine is not an isolated incident, but the start of a chain of events that will influence our lives for years.

Besides the instant impact on oil and gas prices, the region is critical to global supplies of foodstuffs like wheat, and metals vital to manufacturing, like the nickel needed for steelmaking.

The world is about to undergo the most dramatic cost of living crisis in decades.

With industry struggling, inflation rampant, and household spending drained by essentials, recession looms.

Looking back, the vote of 2014 seems like the product of more innocent, less cynical, less frightening times.

Now, sadly, there are a lot of grim times coming down the track that will, in passing, justify delaying Indyref2.

While Mr Blackford’s hint of delay may have only referred to the current crisis, other crises are coming in its wake, and doubtless other deferrals with them.

That may suit the SNP for a while as it tries to make a virtue out of necessity.

But in the long term, it will surely raise questions in the minds of voters about whether independence is the answer.

If events repeatedly postpone it, is it actually a robust all-weather plan?

How many times can a policy stall before it starts to look broken?