Having your cake and eating it: No independence, but an increasingly SNP Scotland?

Much and more has been written about Scotland’s independence referendum
in September 2014, where a record Scottish turnout voted apparently decisively in favour of remaining within the United Kingdom. Yet seven months on from the defeat of their raison d’être, the Scottish National Party (SNP) goes from strength to strength: membership has increased fourfold, newly-elected leader Nicola Sturgeon reportedly won the seven-party UK-wide leaders debate in March, and opinion polls show the party making a considerable advance on their current haul of six seats in the UK Parliament. What explains the continued advance of the SNP? And what impact will such an advance have on the constitutional future of the UK? To look at these present and future changes we must first – briefly – take a look at the recent past.