A bit of late news: a couple of weeks ago the Centre Left reported that 1.5 million Catalans had decided to march for independence, in a region/nation (what you call it ususally depends on your politics) which contains 7.5 million. I said it could mean that a rethink of my view on Scotland – that it was highly unlikely to secede – might be needed at some point.
However, as a confirmed Unionist, I am pleased to report that last Saturday’s independence demo in Edinburgh, according to the BBC, reached the heady figure of only 5,000 participants. While this is an entirely unscientific study, it seems reasonable to conclude that pro-independence feeling there is clearly several orders of magnitude smaller. Even if you allow for differences in organisational competence, weather, geography and the usual inaccuracies in demo turnout figures, that is a singularly unimpressive turnout, relatively speaking.
While the jury’s still out on Catalonia, no independence referendum there is currently even planned, unlike Scotland. But, on the basis of this, Scottish independence ain’t happening any time soon.