THE Scottish Parliament election which takes place in just over two weeks’ time is the most important democratic exercise in Scotland since the independence referendum of 2014. This election is widely seem as a plebiscite on whether the people of Scotland want to revisit the question of independence.

All the indications are that the answer will be a resounding yes. The only real uncertainty is whether the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon will achieve a pro-independence majority alone, or whether that majority will be achieved with representatives from the Scottish Greens and/or the new Alba Party.

In any event, barring something unforeseen and catastrophic occurring over the remaining two-and-a-half weeks of campaigning, Scotland can expect to see a pro-independence parliament in a few weeks’ time, one which is set on a direct collision with Westminster over the question of independence and another referendum.

One issue which has become clear over recent months is that we are approaching the end of the current devolution settlement. The Conservative government of Boris Johnson is overtly hostile to devolution, and it’s only the prospect of another Scottish independence referendum and the consequent need to make a pro-UK pitch to soft No voters that prevents the Conservatives from restricting the powers of Holyrood and centralising power in Downing Street even more than they have done already.

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What we are now seeing is the replacement of traditional understandings of Scottish Unionism, which defended and protected Scottish particularism within the framework of the UK, with a new post-Brexit hyper-Unionism which espouses a brand of right-wing and increasingly authoritarian Anglo-British nationalism.

This new hyper-Unionism has no sympathies with a devolution settlement which creates alternative sources of power, and seeks to rein in the devolved administrations, bringing them firmly under the control of Westminster, while dressing up the power grab in displays of Union flags, bunting and royal events which it insists bring everyone in the UK together even as it drives the different parts of the UK ever further apart.

Within the UK, Scotland faces a future where the term Union is stripped of meaningful political content, and reduced to red, white and blue pageantry, flags projected on to the sides of buildings, gushing sycophantic commentary about who wears what and who stands where at increasingly frequent royal occasions while the stench of Conservative corruption is sidelined and ignored. The UK has become a chumocracy where the likes of David Cameron can argue that his self-serving self-interested abuse of connections and influence was entirely within the rules because the rules themselves are determined and policed by those with an interest in continuing to profit from the system.

Meanwhile there is a never-ending carousel of Conservative corruption and sleaze. With a nod and a wink and a quiet word in the ear over expensive lunches, fortunes are made and tax breaks secured while those same Conservative politicians preach to the poor about financial responsibility and the need for the nation to tighten its belt.

It’s a future where Scotland is to be overtly subordinated to the absolute power of whatever political party has managed to secure a majority of MPs under the dysfunctional and undemocratic first-past-the-post system used for Westminster elections.

It should be clear by now to even the least engaged voter that there is no serious or realistic prospect of substantial constitutional reform at a UK level. The promises of the LibDems and Labour to introduce a federal settlement have has much chance of coming to fruition as there is of Boris Johnson taking action to rein in his and Cameron’s all-encompassing sense of entitlement.

Brexit fetishised the absolute sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament. There is absolutely no chance at all of the Conservatives agreeing to place the limits on Westminster’s sovereignty that a federal settlement would require.

That much was obvious in Willie Rennie’s plaintive and pathetic response during the leaders’ debate on STV last week when he was asked how Scotland could get back into the EU. His reply boiled down to keeping on asking nicely in the hope that eventually the electorate in England would grow disenchanted with the Conservatives and elect someone else.

It was a reply which perfectly illustrated the impotence and powerlessness of Scotland within the UK. The only agency Scotland possesses is to beg and hope that voters in England will pay heed to its concerns. That hasn’t worked at any time in the past 100 years, it’s not about to change any time soon.

The Scottish electorate is increasingly being forced into making a choice between the polar opposites of independence or an ever more centralised unitary Anglo-British state in which the interests of Scotland and the other devolved nations are subordinated to an assertive and intolerant English nationalism.

The middle ground of soft No supporters who favour strong devolved institutions and entrenched rights for the Scottish Parliament which cannot be tampered with is being squeezed out by the hyper-Unionist English nationalism of the Conservative Party. It’s becoming clear there is no place for a Scotland with political priorities of its own in the Conservative vision of the future. The devolution settlement as it was always conceived and understood has run out of road.

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There is no longer any chance of the devolution of more powers to Holyrood under a Westminster government dominated by English nationalists who are hostile to the very concept of devolution and resentful about what they see as Scotland’s privileges within the UK.

The tensions that have been building between an increasingly confident Scotland which seeks to go its own way and a centralising English nationalist Conservative Party are going to come to a head after the Scottish election when the people of Scotland return a pro-independence Parliament with an explicit mandate to bring about another independence referendum.

It’s clear Westminster cannot continue to say no to Scottish demands for another referendum without destroying the traditional understanding of the UK as a voluntary union of nations. One way or another, the old understanding of the UK is dead, killed by those Conservatives who claimed to love it the most. What takes its place will depend on who wins the battle of wills between Holyrood and Westminster which will define the Scottish political landscape following that crucial election on May 6.