SCHEMES to stay in one union overshadowed plans to leave another at the Scottish National Party’s conference in Glasgow this week. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister and the SNP’s leader, backed a second referendum on the terms of the Brexit deal, which could keep Britain in the European Union. Ian Blackford, the party’s leader in Westminster, promised to cause “maximum disruption” in Parliament if the Conservative government ignored Scottish calls for a softer Brexit. Ms Sturgeon went further and demanded that any special post-Brexit status for Northern Ireland should apply to Scotland, too.

When it came to independence from the United Kingdom, though, such gambits were absent. Ms Sturgeon promised a long-term fight, rather than a quick escape. Passion was all well and good, she said, but it had to be mixed with “pragmatism, perseverance and patience to persuade those not yet persuaded.”

For now, Brexit is fine fodder in this task. A big majority of Scots—62%—voted to remain in the EU, but Scotland will leave anyway because of the wishes of English voters. Another referendum on Brexit would hammer this home. Scots would narrowly vote for independence in the event of a “no deal” Brexit, according to one poll. Some in the SNP are demanding that the party call for a second referendum soon. “We cannot dither at this point, we cannot be like the Jacobites in Derby!” declared Angus MacNeil, an MP from the Outer Hebrides, referring to a failed 18th-century rebellion.

But the party’s top brass are not keen on such a punt. A slim majority in the odd poll is not enough to risk another vote, which would be the last for many years. One of the few political missteps by Ms Sturgeon as first minister was a premature push for a second independence vote in the wake of the Brexit referendum. “There are many memorable, heroic Scottish defeats,” said Michael Russell, the SNP’s constitutional minister. “We are not in that business.”

Brexit may make Scots keener on independence. But it also makes independence harder. The SNP wants Scotland to stay in the EU’s single market and customs union. But this would complicate trade with England, its largest market, which intends to leave both. Roping Scotland into whatever arrangement is devised for Northern Ireland is a pipe dream. The Irish backstop plan is designed to preserve a fragile peace process, not the competitiveness of Edinburgh’s financial sector.

As a result, the march to independence is becoming a slog. Unless support rises significantly, another referendum in the next few years is unlikely. In any case, the SNP has other worries. By the next election to the Scottish Parliament, in 2021, it will have been in power for 14 years. Its record is mediocre. If the pro-independence majority in Holyrood disappears, the SNP will be unable to launch a referendum at all.