Everyone’s talking about the 10th anniversary of the 2014 referendum and because I’m easily led, I’m going to do it too, and for the purposes of understanding what the hell happened, I want to look at The Four Ages of Yes: Before, During, Aftermath, and Now. The weird thing about going through those periods is I’ve come to a conclusion I didn’t expect: ten years of Yes has been good for us.

So here we go. The first age: pre-2014. It’s easy to misremember that time as one in which the coming of the referendum, and the rise in support for Yes, seemed inevitable, but that isn’t the case. Support for independence was low; it wasn’t an issue most people talked about much; and David Cameron agreed to a referendum because the SNP won a majority in 2011. But remember the majority was one, only 44% of voters supported the SNP, and it was an objectively different time to devolution in the 90s. Cameron agreed to a referendum for his own reasons but it certainly wasn’t because a big majority of Scots wanted one.

Next, the second phase: 2014 itself. Reflecting on the campaign the other day, John Swinney said the streets were “buzzing” and that grassroots campaign groups, and people who’d become disengaged with politics, were out taking part in a “lively and exciting debate” about the country’s future.

Is that true? To some extent, yes. I remember going to both Yes and No events and some Yes supporters did tell me they’d been disenchanted by politics and felt fired up by the referendum. But I also remember speaking to No voters who were worried and anxious. The idea that the streets were “buzzing” is also a pretty city-centric perspective – in some parts of Glasgow and Dundee maybe, but most communities were either No or divided.........

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