“You know, there’s not a day that passes just now without someone advising me to hurry up with a referendum,” Nicola Sturgeon said at the opening of the SNP conference in Glasgow. “And there’s not a day that passes without someone advising me to slow down.” The First Minister ended on a joke: “Welcome to my world.”
But for many of the SNP members pounding the conference corridors, the question is deadly serious. The party has come closest to success when campaigning for an independent Scotland in the EU. One of the reasons the Yes campaign did not win the 2014 referendum was a refusal by European countries to make any promises on EU membership. There is widespread acknowledgement that trying to leave the UK after Brexit could be disastrous, especially if EU members states don’t play ball. Sexit, if it happens, must be before Brexit.
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