By Nicola Sturgeon
A YEAR ago today the people of Scotland were asked for the first time in our nation’s history whether we should be an independent country. The result was not the one that I and so many others had passionately campaigned for.
For me, the outcome was a crushing disappointment. The early hours of September 19, 2014, as Yes campaigners gathered at Our Dynamic Earth at Holyrood, will remain etched in my mind for ever.
But from that devastating low has emerged a new spirit of hope, optimism and belief that I think is the true legacy of the extraordinary referendum campaign that captivated Scotland throughout last year.
The campaign in the weeks and months running up to polling day was an utter revelation. People who had never before taken part in politics became engaged and enthused.
The grassroots nature of the Yes campaign, which saw public meetings and informal gatherings the length and breadth of the country, developed at a pace and a scale that, I think, surprised even those of us at the heart of the movement.
Never before have I felt such a buzz and energy in political debate. The nation was, as polling day drew nearer, like a gigantic public meeting as ordinary folk debated the merits of currency union, EU membership and tackling social inequalities.
The heady final days of the campaign convinced me that the Yes side were going to win, my perspective perhaps inevitably skewed by the fact that, by that stage, I was spending most of my time campaigning in Glasgow, which voted for independence.
However, the legacy of those inspiring days endures. And I also think that the vast majority of people across Scotland, whether they voted Yes or No, felt empowered by the debate.
We also discovered that we, as a nation, mattered. The focus of the world was, for a fleeting moment, locked on our small part of the planet and I believe that experience was a positive one, not least because of the overwhelmingly peaceful and civil nature of the debate we presented to the world.
I believe that the Yes campaign won a majority of hearts. We took support for independence from barely 30 per cent on some polls at the start of the campaign to within five points of victory.
But we did not win a majority of minds. For too many people, the psychological roadblock to a Yes vote was too great because of the fears, mainly financial and economic, planted by our opponents.
That is a hard truth everyone who believes in independence has to acknowledge.
I believe – now more than ever – that Scotland will become an independent country once again. But we will not do so until we are able to successfully address those concerns and win a majority of hearts and minds, persuading a wide cross-section of Scottish opinion that full self-government is in this nation’s best interests.
The SNP’s Holyrood election manifesto will lay out the possible circumstances of any future independence referendum.
It is a judgment we will make carefully and which will be driven, not by the interests of the SNP, but by the interests of the people of Scotland.
We respect last year's result and only the people, in democratic votes, can decide if there is to be another referendum and ultimately whether Scotland becomes independent.
But the actions of an out-of-touch Tory Government at Westminster, with only one MP out of 59, are only encouraging support for independence, as I warned David Cameron would happen when I met him after the General Election.
Two dozen opinion polls in the year since the referendum have asked the independence question and each has shown the Yes vote up from last year.
The Prime Minister needs to understand what is driving that mood in Scotland. It is a direct reaction to the policies of his government, its austerity agenda, its intention of dumping a new generation of nuclear weapons on the Clyde and the threat of dragging us out of Europe against our will. Fewer than one in 10 Scots believe he is delivering on the "vow" of more powers, which even its chief architect, Gordon Brown, says the Tories are reneging on.
A year on from last year’s historic vote, Scotland is a nation still alive with political debate. The legacy is a nation re-energised and more confident about itself than at any time in our history.
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