Why Scottish independence is now a question of when not if

In the midst of the Covid19 crisis that has engulfed the world, a recent Panelbase Sunday Times poll revealed that support for independence in Scotland is now the majority position, with an astonishing 54 percent of respondents declaring that in the event of a second referendum they would vote Yes.

To place this in context, around 45 percent voted for Scottish independence in 2014 as the culmination of a campaign which began in March 2013 when then First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond first announced the date of the referendum. In 2013 base line support for independence stood at around 38 percent. It lulled David Cameron and the London Tory establishment into a sense of false security vis-a-vis the prospect of it coming to pass.

Now, six years and two crises later, everything has changed and changed utterly.

Writing as someone who opposed independence in 2014, but is now fully behind it, the fact it now enjoys majority support for the first time comes as no surprise — not with the way that Brexit has blown the bloody doors off of any lingering semblance that this is a United Kingdom.

If this new poll confirms anything it is that the dysfunction of Westminster, along with the British exceptionalism, nativism and Little Englanderism encapsulated by Brexit, has in…