If you voted No in 2014 ... how do you feel now?

How are you feeling now if you voted No in 2014 because the leaders of British political parties told you that the only way that Scotland could retain its membership of the European Union was to vote against independence, and you believed them? How are you feeling now if you voted No in 2014 because the leaders of British political parties told you that Scotland was an equal partner in a family of British nations, and you believed them? How are you feeling now, knowing that nothing that they told you was true, that you’ve been taken for granted, that you’ve been ignored and sidelined?

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In the EU referendum of 2016, Scotland was the part of the UK which most strongly opposed Brexit. In the months since, opposition to Brexit has only grown in Scotland. According to a YouGov poll for the People’s Vote campaign, almost two-thirds of people in Scotland are against leaving the EU, but Scotland is leaving the EU anyway. Sixty-six per cent of Scots voters now oppose Brexit, as compared to 62% in the EU referendum.

It’s bad enough that Scotland is being forced out of the EU despite a huge majority of Scots wishing to remain, but Scotland is leaving the EU and those who are in charge of the Brexit process are refusing to listen to Scottish concerns. Scotland has no voice in the Brexit negotiations, no representation. The same poll finds that almost two-thirds of Scottish voters believe that the British government is ignoring Scottish concerns.

So much for being a valued partner in a family of nations. So much for leading within the UK. So much for being, to paraphrase JK Rowling, in the position of a spouse who was considering leaving but changed their mind and now is in a position of strength. The official position of the British government towards the concerns and interests of a Scotland which opposes Brexit, a Scotland where there are fears and worries about how this decision we do not support will damage us, is to stick its collective fingers in its ears while singing Rule Britannia.

It’s no defence to claim that it was a UK-wide vote and that Scotland must abide by it when a major plank in the campaign to prevent Scotland voting for independence, just two years prior to the EU referendum, was to tell us that the only way Scotland could remain a part of the EU was by voting No. Scotland has effectively voted twice to remain a part of the EU, but we’re leaving it anyway, and we’re leaving it without having any say in the shape or form that our exit takes.

In Dundee today, thousands of ordinary people, Scots from all backgrounds, people who were born Scots, people who choose to be Scots, people who do Scotland the honour of choosing to make their lives here, are marching to assert the right of Scotland to decide. They’re marching to say that they reject the xenophobia of a Conservative-led Brexit. They’re marching to say that they won’t sit back passively while their life choices and opportunities are decided for them by a remote Parliament in London in which Scotland’s representatives are a permanent minority who can be ignored and dismissed, a Parliament-led by people who know little about Scotland and who care about it only as a tartan fig leaf which disguises English nationalism as British and allows it to pretend that it’s not nationalist at all. They’re marching to say that things don’t have to be like this. They’re doing something about it. They’re demanding that Scotland has a voice.

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How are you feeling now, if you voted No in 2014 because of the promises that haven’t been kept? But more importantly, what are you going to do about it? You can wait for the Tories or Labour to give you permission to express your view. You can cross your fingers and hope that maybe it won’t be so bad. You can hope that maybe Jeremy Corbyn will change his mind and lead a Labour party that actually reflects the views of the great majority of Labour supporters in Scotland. You can stick your fingers in your ears so you don’t have to hear the Tories singing Rule Britannia.

Or you can support the right of Scotland to decide for itself. That’s the choice facing Scotland, you can choose to be silenced, you can choose to be ignored, or you can choose to decide your own destiny. You don’t have to march, you don’t have to wave a saltire. But you can choose to speak up, you can demand a choice. Because if you remain silent, those who don’t care about you, who make decisions which damage your future and your children’s future will take your silence as consent. Democracy is too important to be left to other people, it requires mass participation.