One of the most difficult tasks which will face Nicola Sturgeon’s successor is leading a divided independence movement. The source of this division, senior SNP sources say, is the outgoing First Minister’s strategy which they believe has led them up a political cul-de-sac.
Sturgeon’s Plan A, which she pursued for most of her eight years in office, was to seek a joint agreement with the UK Government on IndyRef2. The model was the Edinburgh Agreement that led to the 2014 referendum.
But when successive Tory prime ministers refused to play ball, the First Minister used her Holyrood win last year to back a Plan B. This amounted to pursuing a referendum organised by Holyrood and bypassing the UK Government.
