Since Brexit fundamentally alters the terms on which Scotland voted to remain part of the UK in 2014, Nicola Sturgeon is perfectly within her rights to demand a second referendum on whatever timetable the Scottish parliament decides. It was, after all, the Better Together campaign that chose to make Scotland’s place in the EU one of the three big issues of the last referendum campaign, along with public spending and the economy. Scottish voters were warned that independence would leave them locked out of the EU. Now independence is their only hope of avoiding that fate. Unionists have a job on their hands to explain why that no longer matters.
The context of EU withdrawal means that the second referendum, when it comes, will not be a simple re-run of the first. The issues and arguments will be different, as will the electoral coalitions that line up behind them. Whether this favours a different outcome remains to be seen. Much will depend on how difficult and painful the process of Brexit turns out to be, and how long Theresa May is able to postpone the day of reckoning. Yet there are already at least four significant respects in which Brexit has overturned the assumptions of three years ago.
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