Mark Smith: Admit it: ten years of Yes has been good for us

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. And there was the nasty side of it as well, the anger, the aggression, mostly from the Yes side. “A lively and exciting debate”? Only for some Mr Swinney.

So what about the third phase, the aftermath, two years on and beyond? Completely different again. The Brexit referendum happened (Cameron clearly not having learned from his mistakes), the SNP did very well at the 2015 election and – in contrast to pre-2014 – there did seem to be an inexorable upward trend in support for Yes. I remember seeing the result of the EU referendum and thinking: well, that’s that then, the SNP and Yes are going to win now.

But then came the fourth of the Ages of Yes, the one we’re living in now. If there was an opportunity to exploit the EU referendum to win another Scottish referendum (and I’m not sure there really was), Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP failed to take it. As Mr Swinney told the recent BBC documentary, even some senior people in the SNP were concerned about how they might motivate people on another independence referendum so soon after the last one.

Another thing then started to happen which, for a time, we thought the SNP might be immune to; Sir John Curtice described it when I spoke to him recently. For a time, he said, politics in Scotland was dominated by the constitutional question and we were polarised. But gradually, that started to fade and the SNP could no longer rely on the support of virtually everybody who voted Yes.

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The other thing Sir John picked up – and it was a long time coming – was people’s growing willingness to detach their support for the SNP from how the party was doing on the health service and schools and so on. For many years, the constitutional question effectively insulated the SNP from the normal process of being held to account for its record. But around 2022, Scottish voters, including previous Yes voters, started to shift and the SNP eventually did badly at the general election.

So there we are: the Four Ages of Yes and here we are standing around wondering what they did to us. Five years ago, two even, I would have said the effects of the referendum were almost entirely negative. The lingering, ill-tempered division among Scots between Yes and No. The pre-eminence of the constitutional question. The dominance of the SNP. And – certainly when nationalism’s most able leader, Nicola Sturgeon, was still in power – the ongoing risk to the Union with all the possible economic, cultural and social consequences (Brexit but worse).

However, ten years on, I’m much more positive, and we can go through the Four Ages one more time to understand why. As I said, in the first age, pre-2014, there wasn’t any great rise in support for Yes or a push for a referendum. But the issue was dormant certainly and there would come a time, if not in 2014 then later, when it needed to be tested. The union of the nations is by consent and from time to time we need to check that consent. And so, painful and horrible as it was, we did.

We then entered the second stage, the campaign itself, and in retrospect, we can look back on that as positive too. Yes, there was nastiness, but ultimately, the Yes campaign did at least have to face the questions that did for them. Remember the TV debate in which Alex Salmond was pressed about the issue of currency and couldn’t come up with the answers? Alistair Darling accused him of arguing for independence using guesswork, blind faith and crossed fingers and, in the absence of coherent answers on the currency, the economy and the border, it’s an accusation that’s never gone away.

We can also see now that the period after the EU referendum and Brexit – one that the SNP thought they could exploit – actually underlined all the problems the Yes campaign have with currencies and economies and borders. We saw what happens when countries come out of economic unions and we inevitably asked: doesn’t the same apply to Scotland and the UK? Of course it does.

(Image: A Yes rally)

Which only leaves the fate of the SNP and the final phase of the last ten years in which, as John Curtice pointed out, the insulation that the constitutional question gave the SNP was finally punctured. Combined with the departure of Nicola Sturgeon, it means the SNP is a much-reduced force and we partly have the 2014 referendum to thank/blame for that. To that extent, all of it – independence debated, the SNP tested – has been good for us.

Which leads to the question of what happens next. There’s a tendency among some unionists to delight in the SNP’s travails right now, but in politics what goes down must go up. Indeed, there’s a new poll for The Sunday Times which shows support for Yes among under-35s at 63% and the question is: will they change their minds as they get older or will they still think that way when they’re 65? I’d say the first option is more likely but I can’t be sure, which raises an interesting (disturbing) possibility. A recovery for the SNP in time, another referendum, and a victory for independence. You might, I suppose, call it the Fifth Age of Yes. Will it happen? Yes, maybe.