IN the first week of 2017, we have already seen two indicators that, in my view, will define the year for Scotland in the all-important task of recasting our relations with the rest of the UK and with Europe.

The first was the opinion poll showing a marked aversion among Scots to holding another referendum on independence in the next 12 months. We are going into the fourth year running of political turmoil. While the commentariat may think this great fun, average punters are obviously starting to find it all a bit too much. They would prefer politicians to leave them alone while they return to cultivating their gardens.

That is bad news for the gung-ho enthusiasts, some of them writing for this newspaper, who cannot wait to get into a fresh referendum campaign. The last one was indeed an inspiring experience, warming the cockles of the coldest political heart. But I do not believe it was just a failure to hit even greater heights of commitment that lost it. The basic reason for defeat was a lack of persuasive argument at the margins among voters swayed more by calculation than by patriotism. Next time round, they are still less likely to be won over by our shouting louder and waving the Saltire with greater vigour. But I’ll return to the point below.

The second indicator is the sudden resignation of Sir Ivan Rogers, the UK Government’s permanent representative to the EU. This made him one of the most powerful figures in the British bureaucracy, and his escape is without doubt a heavy blow for Theresa May and her merry men. They are the ones who have caused it, by their inability to agree on what exactly what they want out of Brexit and, I suspect, also by their unwillingness to face up to what Rogers has been telling them about the uncomfortable realities of European attitudes towards the departing Brits.

The job of the permanent representative is to keep his finger on the political pulse on both sides of the Channel. Successive holders of the post have been seen in Brussels as obstructers of European unity, but in London as fifth columnists for it (see what the sycophantic London press has been saying about the resignation in the last couple of days). Probably, this means these men have just been doing their job well. The fact that Rogers no longer feels he can do it at all bodes ill. It hints how difficult, acrimonious and frustrating this year’s negotiations may be.

A hard Brexit then becomes the almost inevitable result, with the breaking of bonds that Britain and Europe have built over almost half a century because there can be no agreement on how to replace them.

Looking at both indicators from the perspective of Edinburgh, they narrow the options for 2017 rather alarmingly.

The Scottish Government has set out in good faith how it believes we might be able to preserve as many as possible of the continuing connections we voted for by a big majority in the European referendum. Basically this plan relies on a soft Brexit, on an amicable parting of the ways between Britain and the EU. Or, failing that, it relies on a benevolent willingness in both London and Brussels to accommodate the special interests of a small nation that would like to stay friends with both sides, and in particular to remain part of the European single market. Yet it is already growing clear that the sweet reason of this even-handed approach is hopelessly optimistic. If the Brits and the Europeans are slugging it out, nobody will pause to hand lollipops to the Scots onlookers.

So, in effect, the 50 pages of detail set out only just before Christmas in the official document Scotland’s Place in Europe have already been rendered obsolete by the time of our bleary-eyed return to work after the New Year celebrations.

Their sub-text was that only after all other possibilities had been exhausted would Nicola Sturgeon reach for the nuclear button of a new referendum on independence. It seemed a finely calculated stance, til we found out that the Scottish people just do not feel like repeating, not yet anyway, that breathlessly heady experience of September 18, 2014. Amid general referendum fatigue, it would be much harder to get us trooping to the polls in the same numbers a second time around, let alone achieving a better result.

By any measure, this leaves the Scottish Government in a weakened position in 2017 compared to what it had hoped for in 2016. It makes more likely the worst of all worlds: a Scotland dragged out of the EU against its will, yet unable to find the means to loosen the British stranglehold either.

The French author Voltaire invented the character Candide as a type of hopeful innocent, vulnerable to the calamities of the real world, and it was poor Candide that had to conclude in the end that ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’ – ‘we must cultivate our gardens’. When things are not running your way, in other words, there are still measures you can take to improve your basic position.

For instance, even if an early second referendum could be held, I doubt if it would be won or lost primarily on the question of relations with the EU, though this question might have prompted it. A referendum often becomes, at least in large part, a means for the voters to pass judgment on the general performance of the government that has called it. The government is then well-advised to call its referendum when things, especially economic things, are looking up rather than looking down.

At the moment in Scotland, things are looking down. Growth is weak, and in the aftermath of Brexit is likely to weaken further, so as to send unemployment soaring again and stretch resources for the social services. Yet the Scottish Government shows next to no interest in practical measures to relieve the situation by raising the rate of growth. Instead it prattles on about inclusiveness and sustainability in the economy, things which, while all very nice in themselves, will make no contribution to growth.

It is true the Government set up a commission under ex-MSP Andrew Wilson to look at what might be done about improving our dismal growth. But its report, due by the end of 2016, has yet to appear. Wilson has gone on record to express his opinion that more wealth creators should be attracted to Scotland. The only response has been to raise the higher rates of income tax. Will wealth creators come to Scotland to pay more tax?

The general impression is that in this aspect of policy the Scottish Government does not know what it is doing or what it is talking about. Yet unless and until it can offer the people of Scotland a standard of living that is at least as good as the one the UK can offer us (and will without doubt offer us if that is the price of keeping the Union together), the prospect of independence recedes. I believe it will come in the end, but it is a lot further away than it was before Christmas.