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If by "fails" you mean a no to independence then from a democratic standpoint it would be whenever the Scottish electorate demanded one by voting for a party or parties that have holding one in their manifesto's and them achieving a parliamentary majority on that issue. The same's true if by failure you mean the majority vote FOR independence. A party or parties would have to go to the polls with a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum to ask the electorate if they want to give up their country's independence, they would then have to achieve the majority of MP's needed to vote it through Parliament. I know there's some people out there against Scottish independence who would prefer if all mention of it went away. Maybe if the UK government had done something to make the UK a more attractive proposition for some of the 'yes' and reluctant 'no' voters after the 2014 referendum it could've panned out that way... We'll never know. What I find disturbing are those who would deny ANY democratic path to independence. Thankfully we don't live in a dictatorship and despite some of the rhetoric that's out there Scotland is still a voluntary member of the United Kingdom. The people will decide whether or not they want to remain part of it.