SNP aren't as often presented a one trick pony party. You have to look at Tuition fees, prescriptions, care for the elderly, their focus on renewables as demonstrated in a thread I created today etc.
They're clearly not a one trick pony. They need to have had some popular policies (for both pre and post referendum) and some bribes to the conveniently extended electorate otherwise they'd have never been able to form a viable government to even push the referendum. Golf resorts aside, anyway.
But, when their central tenet is full independence for Scotland (even if you would then cede control of your currency to a different country's central bank and half your other powers to Brussels 
) anything less than that result is a rather large fail on their part and most definitely on the leaderships part. To then, all of a sudden, decide that devomax is palatable after all and that they can work within that framework is somewhat of a volte-face and must surely make Salmond/Sturgeon/whoever's positions untenable, if the SNP is to carry on in it's current guise.
Assuming a "No" vote and that the SNP survives as a majority government, do you as a country go through this pain again every 2-3-4-5 years until they get the result they want, even if it's just a 50%+1 vote of those who turn out, which might by then only be 30% of the electorate through fatigue? Or do you just say fcuk it, stick that one on the back burner for another 20 years and get on with making the best of what we've got (which is already more than anybody else in the UK)?
I thought (probably incorrectly) that the SNP was formed out of an amalgamation of smaller democratic/liberal/socialist parties over the years. But, Scottish politics is very far from any expertise or real interest I have (and why I've no idea about Scottish Labour and how sh!t they may or may not be in comparison to the muppets down here).
I hope you stay. But if you go, I'll happily wave goodbye to the newly unemployed Westminster MP's that independence will create.
I think the slide towards devomax (and they wanted it as an option in the referendum but pulled it out to get agreement with Westminster to hold it at all) is that it's more palatible for the electorate. I think it's something they'd aim to go to as a stepping stone to the ultimate goal rather than stopping there. A gradual transfer of control.
What happens after a No vote? Who knows. It's not without it's own risks. We've stuck our necks out now and there's already voices piping up to remove powers. It'll be a case of we'll see.
I think the SNP with dust themselves down and look to present it again in a few years. But if we vote No and they put it forward to quickly they'll find themselves out of power for quite a while and Jo Lamont's Scottish Labour as our only alternative at the moment, god help us.
