independence as a positive but workable vision for the people of Scotland. The launch stood up pretty well to critical examination by the press, and on social media there were hopeful signs that our message was cutting through the usual fog of politics.
That night, in looking at the BBC online reaction, I was struck by an entry from Stevie Kennedy of Mow Cop, a village in Staffordshire: ‘As a Scot living in England with an English wife and kids, I feel British first. Today, though, I see a politician talking and I feel hope kindle in my heart that the UK’s future isn’t all about Westminster and the corrupt industrial–political machinery that controls it regardless of what we vote for. It’s been a long time since I felt hope or any other positive emotion when watching a politician speaking, yet I know the next 10 months will see relentless waves of cynical negativity from the No campaign.’
I have never met Mr Kennedy, but he sums up really well the position facing us going into 2014. On the plus side we were inspiring the people with a new vision. The difficulty would be sustaining it against the avalanche of ‘cynical negativity’ which he so rightly expected.
The most consistent and regular polling was carried out by YouGov, asking the same question as the one that would appear on the ballot paper.
In August 2013, according to the first YouGov poll, the NO side were 30 points ahead: 59–29. By the end of the year, after the launch of the White Paper, their lead had shrunk to 20 per cent: 52–33.
Through the spring and into the summer of 2014 the YouGov polls still recorded NO leads of between 14 and 20 per cent. However, the previous ‘don’t knows’ were generally moving to YES at around 2–1. That group of undecided voters was around 15 per cent at the end of 2013, 10 per cent in the first half of 2014 and then a mere 5 per cent by August 2014.
At first sight, the effective stability in the polls in the first half of 2014 did not look like good news for the YES campaign. However, a deeper examination tells us otherwise.
In quick succession in mid-February the unionist forces fired their biggest guns. First George Osborne, hand in glove with Danny Alexander and Ed Balls, ruled out a currency union, while José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, popped up on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show to say that it would be ‘difficult, if not impossible’ to secure the approval of member states for an independent Scotland’s accession to the European Union.
This heavy artillery, which was meant to finish the argument, misfired. The first bombardment, on the currency, looked high-handed, with former First Minister Henry McLeish and even Gordon Brown expressing open or private doubts about the tactic.
The second barrage was regarded with even more incredulity. Sir David Edward, a former judge at the European Court of Justice and a unionist to his fingertips (albeit one who is increasingly despairing of the europhobic politics of Westminster), was moved to directly counter Barroso’s bureaucratic bombast, arguing that the latter’s comparison of Scotland and Kosovo was little short of preposterous.
Neither Osborne’s ‘sermon on the pound’ nor Barroso’s lecture on Europe cut the mustard. They were meant to close out the game but did not have the desired impact. Indeed in the case of the currency the effect was, on balance, counterproductive. And when big guns are fired too early it is sometimes difficult to reload in time.
The launch of the White Paper caused the first big shift to YES. After that, for the first six months of 2014, there was effectively a standoff between the fear-mongering of the NO side and the aspiration of the YES side. As we moved into the last 100 days, the grassroots campaign took off and momentum shifted towards YES.
And so battle was joined and the referendum decided. Of course it is possible to win a battle and lose a war, just as it is possible to lose a referendum and still win the end game. In the aftermath of the ballot the losing YES side have emerged looking like winners while the winning NO side are looking like losers. The full consequences of the Scottish referendum are only just beginning to be understood.
*
Politicians can so often sound mechanical, robotic even: pre-programmed with policies and beliefs. Possessing none of the necessary emotion that makes life worth living.
I believe that the referendum was Scotland’s democratic hour, the moment of fundamental reassessment. A time when many people realised that, collectively, they could be more significant than they had ever previously believed. The moment to change, to influence. Rather than just listening to the weather forecast, the people got to decide what the weather should be.
I didn’t have to see the world differently. My upbringing had grounded me with that same belief all of my life. I have always been fortunate to have had that at my core. There are now many more people in Scotland in that position.
The great impenetrable edifices, the blocks to progress – Westminster, the Labour establishment – are still there, but they have started to crumble and the people sense it.
I have my family history to thank for my convictions. Both of my parents eventually reached the same conclusion on Scottish independence in their own separate ways. As my father tells it, his moment of conversion happened during an exchange with a Labour canvasser on the front doorstep. Faither was asked how he would be voting.
‘Labour,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘Always have.’
‘That’s great,’ said the canvasser before inquiring about my mum’s voting intention.
‘No hope for her,’ said Faither. ‘She’s a Tory.’
‘Not a problem,’ said the Labour man. ‘Just as long as she doesn’t vote for those Scottish Nose Pickers!’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Faither. ‘My best pal’s in the SNP.’
‘They’re all nose pickers,’ said the canvasser.
Dad: ‘No, they’re no’!’
Canvasser: ‘Aye, they are.’
Half an hour later and they’re still at it – but, by this time, it wasn’t just my dad’s friend the canvasser was insulting. He was running down the whole of Scotland.
Finally Faither – ever thrawn – finished the fraught conversation.
‘Look, when you arrived I told you I’d vote Labour as I have done in every election. I will now vote SNP in every election. I want you to remember that this is what you have achieved tonight.’
This exchange – which probably took place during the West Lothian by-election in 1962 – bears a striking similarity to Labour’s attitude in the referendum.
It’s not just that they campaigned side by side with the Tories, it’s the fact that they were running down Scotland alongside them too, shoulder to shoulder, hand in glove.
And you don’t have to be a member of the SNP to be angry when someone is belittling your country.
My dad has voted SNP for the past fifty years on the back of that conversation. Fifty years! And the Labour Party think they’ll be able to wash their hands and, over the next few months, move on from what they’ve done.
As for my late mum, her route was rather different and more recent – and it was more about a mother’s love than a political conversion, despite her distaste for high Thatcherism.
In the 1990s, during my first term as SNP leader, I was conducting a press conference in London when it became clear that the Labour-supporting Daily Record wanted to have a pop at me by ‘exposing’ Mum as a Tory. If he can’t convince his own mother, why should people listen to him? That kind of thing.
I knew they were going to doorstep her and phoned with a warning. ‘Leave it to me,’ she said.
The Record duly turned up to quiz her on her Conservative leanings. ‘That’s true,’ she said, ‘but all in the past. I’m actually very disappointed in Mr Major and can tell you – and this is exclusive – that I will now be voting in the same direction as my husband – and my son.’