Nicola Sturgeon isn't really backing away from independence – she's waiting for a terrible Brexit to do her job for her

By 2019, when Theresa May looks even more ragged than she looks now, Scottish people will be glad to go to the ballot box and vote for independence. Their currency will have fallen through the floor, a hard Brexit will be coming, and there'll be no Northern Irish £1bn coming along to make it all better

Nicola Sturgeon in Holyrood, where she shelved immediate plans for a second referendum (AFP)

As Nicola Sturgeon might have said herself, “circumstances have changed”. Yet again.

In Holyrood, the First Minister declared today that the SNP would put all its weight behind Brexit talks and would "not seek to introduce the legislation for an independence referendum immediately”.

“Give us peace,” was the apt response from Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson.

Aye, indeed. We all know that, behind closed doors, the First Minister and her diminished “one party state” will be analysing the polls and the public mood, as well as watching Brexit negotiations like hawks, to decide when and where to hold the next vote.

Why, after all, would you spend time and energy campaigning for another possible defeat in 2018/2019, when the two-year Brexit talks might prove so calamitous that the job is done for you?

By 2019, when Theresa May will be so tired from yelling at Jean-Claude Juncker that she won’t even be able to smile for a photo-op, Scottish people might be glad to run to the ballot boxes and cast a vote for independence. They will likely find out that they will not get an extra £1bn like the DUP in Northern Ireland, that their currency has fallen through the floor and their most important trading links cut off. The referendum would still possibly allow Scotland to stay in the EU, a departure the Scottish people hadn’t reckoned with in 2014.

So don’t take the headlines at face value. Claiming that Sturgeon has “shelved” the referendum is misleading at worst, and naive at best. The SNP without independence – the ultimate goal of nationalism, the party’s middle name – is like taking austerity away from Theresa May, or snatching immigration laws away from Ukip. The party becomes purposeless, rudderless without it. In the long term, without independence, the SNP’s rhetoric about “forging our own destiny” would be like white sheet on a clothes line, billowing in the wind.

The general election this month produced many unwelcome results for Nicola Sturgeon. Like Theresa May, she won the election in her country, but it wasn’t the landslide she was hoping for.

Interestingly, Scotland has proved itself to be the mirror opposite in mood and public opinion compared to the rest of the UK in recent years. In the 2015 election, the Tories were propelled back into power at Westminster, while Scots voted for the liberal policies of the SNP. In the Brexit referendum the following year, Scotland overwhelmingly voted to remain, while England and Wales wanted out. In 2017, Labour won 34 seats including Tory strongholds like Canterbury and Kensington, yet the Tories gained 13 seats north of the border.

The Scottish independence referendum has become a waiting game. It is a delicate, political act, and will change as quickly as the political world around it. The referendum in Scotland is a vehicle to demonstrate the SNP has a mandate, and perhaps also a clever way to distract from the everyday, more important issues that affect people in Scotland, like the economy and poverty and air pollution.

Waiting for clarity around Brexit is a shrewd and clever move. Like a good politician, Sturgeon knows that the job of a salesperson is not to sell somebody independence, but to make them want to buy it.