The other reason to think that a larger portion of SNP voters in the general election were unionist is that the polls indicate that the relative proportion of “Yes” and “No” supporters is about the same now as at thetime of the referendum. According to the authoritative What Scotland Thinks website, polls from October to December 2014 indicated that “Yes” had overtaken “No” by between one and five percentage points. This year, however, “No” has recovered its lead in all but two of 13 polls, and in YouGov’s survey of May 21 it was five points ahead — exactly the same as the very last poll on the eve of the referendum vote. The actual result, of course, doubled that.

Therefore in the coming months and years it will be very important for unionists to beware of succumbing to three illusions, all of which Alex Salmond is already doing his very best to conjure: first, that the serried ranks of SNP MPs stand for all Scots; second, that they represent a mandate for a fully independent Scottish state; and third, that such independence is inevitable. They don’t and it isn’t.

Understanding “independence”

In last year’s referendum a confusing ambiguity clung to the question put to voters: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” This was confusing because the issue was never whether or not Scotland should be independent, but rather how independent it should be. In the Union Scotland has always been somewhat self-governing, possessing its own kirk, law, and education system. With the establishment of the Scottish parliament in 1999 its autonomy expanded dramatically to include control, for example, of the Scottish NHS. And in 2012 the Westminster parliament overcame SNP opposition to pass the Scotland Act and increase the Scottish government’s tax-raising and borrowing powers. Taken literally, therefore, the question asked of voters in September made a negative response awkward for anyone who affirmed the autonomy that Scotland has always enjoyed and recently increased. It played right into the hands of the “Yes” campaign. Had the question been more precisely, “Should Scotland leave the United Kingdom?”, the “No” vote would have been much stronger.

Scottish separatists with one eye firmly fixed on the far horizon of fully sovereign statehood knew that. So Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon were content to campaign last year for something only approximating their ultimate goal but currently more palatable to a wider range of voters: an “independence” that would have retained both the British monarchy and the British pound.

“Independence” means different things to different Scots. Only a minority of them hanker after embassies that fly the Saltire instead of the Union Jack, or after a Scottish Defence Force entirely separate from the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force. Many more of them, however, want Scotland to have the power to determine its own policies for public spending, not least on economic development and social welfare.