Scotland has been a one-party state in all but name – so what now?

The troubles of the SNP will not end the quest for Scottish independence, believes Mary Dejevsky

Nicola Sturgeon (PA) (PA Wire)

A meltdown, an implosion, a trainwreck: however you describe what has happened in Scottish politics over the past eight weeks, it is hard to envisage any rapid return to pre-eminence for the SNP. It is hard, too, to feel anything other than sympathy for Scottish National Party’s new leader, Humza Yousaf, who has been unceremoniously left with a shattered inheritance.

The dawn raid by police at the house shared by the former SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, and her husband, the party’s former chief executive Peter Murrell, signified the latest nadir. A neighbour saw the blue tent erected in the garden and feared there had been a murder.

There had not been a murder – but a death of a kind there had been. The dream – for some Scots – of independence is over, probably for at least a generation.