The polls had yet to open, far less close, when the predictions began. The 2024 General Election would be remembered as the moment when the threat of Scottish independence was extinguished forever.

The impending rout of the SNP would signal more than the Scottish electorate passing judgment on a failed and unpopular government: it would be the death of a 100-year movement.

Suddenly, it appears fashionable to revive the spirit of George Robertson circa 1997, whose memorably hyperbolic prediction that devolution would “kill nationalism stone dead” is, once again, de rigeur in some circles.

Operation Branchform, the ongoing defenestration of Nicola Sturgeon over her obsessive commitment to a divisive and dangerous trans bill, the Scottish Government’s failure to deliver on key priorities for voters such as health, education, and economic growth, are all potential, valid reasons why voters may have deserted the SNP in droves last Thursday.

But it wasn’t a political party that was standing in the election, according to some politicians and commentators; rather it was the notion of independence itself that was on the ballot, and the verdict of the electorate was unequivocal.

The separatist movement’s time has come and gone. There will never be another independence referendum. One fevered headline even asserted that the Union of Scotland with the rest of the UK has never been more secure in the past 300 years. Wow!

If journalism is the first draft of history, then it is, by its nature, short-termist and context-bound, but even commentators, and the politicians whose views they prospect, have........

© Herald Scotland