Conundrum for the SNP

Reading through Jeff's analysis of recent poll figures, a question which I've been considering in my studies at the moment suddenly became more pertinent.

Jeff has the SNP winning 25 of the 59 Scottish Westminster seats on 33% of the vote, which seems doubtful, but that's not the point of this post. Ipsos-Mori also has them winning 38% of the constituency vote in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, a massive 13% lead over Labour in second. Again, it seems rather high, but perhaps that reinforces the point I'm going to make.

The SNP, after 2 and a half years as the Scottish Government, are still proving popular with the public (as the poll figures above indicate). Yet, and despite moving forward with the National Conversation with the publication of An Oil Fund for Scotland and Europe and Foreign Affairs indicating a more intensive discussion process as they build towards their intended referendum, support for independence remains static at around 28% of the population.

Now, from an SNP perspective, that figure may be "soft", indicating a lot of people (such as Jeff himself) who remain undecided about independence but may be convinced when they have heard a positive case for independence through the National Conversation process. Or, it may be a hard ceiling - the height of support for the SNP's constitutional preference - and indicate that, if a referendum occurs, the party will see a massive defeat.

I suspect the answer may be somewhere in between. Without reading too much into "loaded" polling questions and from anecdotal evidence, I'd suggest the constitutional question falls at about 60-40, with 60% against at the moment. Which I think is good news. 60% is 6 in 10. Change one mind and its a tie, change two and its a landslide (quote, Will Bailey). But I digress.

The point I wanted to make was this. What if support for the SNP maintains at its current levels - or even increases - and sees the party win near a majority of Scottish Westminster seats, improve their position in the Scottish Parliament to 50-55 MSPs in 2011 and maintain their position as the Scottish Government post-election but at the same time support for independence remains static at 28, what does the party do?

The party will have proved that they can govern competently and will have remained popular as a government (if indeed, their vote share/ representation increases). But their main policy objective would remain the preference of the minority (assuming no referendum in 2010 given current parliamentary hostility to the idea).

Could we judge the party as a successful government? Or, given their inability to legislate for their main policy objective, would that constitute failure? And yet, if they continue as a popular (populist??) government, people will continue to vote for them, and ignore their constitutional goals.

This is the conundrum facing the SNP: how do they translate the support for the party in government to support for their constitutional objective? How can they convince people that the government needs more powers when they are running it (in the public's eye at least - according to poll figures) effectively and efficiently? In short, why should the Scottish population support constitutional upheaval when they are content with the SNP as a Government?

I don't know if there is an answer, but I'd suggest that the extension of the National Conversation at the moment is seeking to inform further why constitutional change may be preferable. But whether the SNP see any shift in support for independence remains to be seen.