Is Scottish independence inevitable? What one thinks about the long-term likelihood of Scottish independence is closely tied to what one wants to happen.

YouGov polling for the 10th anniversary of the referendum found that 64% of independence supporters think Scotland will be independent in the next two decades, compared to just 11% of unionists. Where one sits on the constitutional question determines where one stands on the question of whether Scotland will become independent.

Nevertheless, there are arguments worth having here, for both sides of the constitutional debate, not to mention for those who want to understand the state of and long-term trends in Scottish political opinion. The key question is one of demography. We have known since 2014 that the younger a voter is, the more likely they are to support independence. The most recent poll found that 75% of 16-29-year-olds would vote Yes, compared to just 34% of those over 75. This gap is regularly deployed in arguments over whether Scottish independence is only a matter of time.

Independence supporters often make what has been euphemistically called the "actuarial" argument: as older, more unionist voters pass away, and as younger, more pro-independence voters come of age, the level of overall support for secession will rise until a persistent majority are in favour of Scottish secession. Between the 2014 referendum and the end of last year, there were around 620,000 deaths in Scotland, and just under 550,000 teenagers turned 16 and became eligible to vote, equivalent to around one-eighth of the Scottish electorate.

Read more by Mark McGeoghegan

The obvious counterargument to this, made predominantly by supporters of the Union, is that as........

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