What progress have we made in the 10 years since the referendum?

I must begin by confessing that I never felt back then that we were going to win the 2014 vote. Like everyone else on the Yes advisory board I expressed optimism in public, but it was bravado.

The polling evidence had been clear throughout and the result was consistent with the picture it had painted. Scotland, it seemed, was not ready for independence. Our preference was apparently for devo-max, whatever that meant!

Nevertheless, I was proud of the campaign we had run. I was proud of the part the Scottish Socialist Party had played in sewing our unique commitment to an independent socialist Scotland, a modern democratic republic, into the quilt of disparate voices seeking liberation.

We had conclusively shown we could work constructively with others while honouring the tradition of Maclean and Connolly from which we had come throughout the campaign. I proclaimed in the days following the vote that the closeness of the result signified that independence had been deferred, not defeated.

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Ten years later, I am again more circumspect with my predictions because our movement has not made the progress I hoped it would. We still lack majority support, for example, and that is in many ways the key to everything.

The last decade has been politically turbulent and yet ultimately disappointing. Nicola Sturgeon’s ill-advised sojourn to the Supreme Court in London to have the 1998 Scotland Act explained to her once again seemed to signify desperation above all.

I argued against it at the time and still see it as probably the poorest decision she made. But if we are honest, and we must be, there were others. The 2016 Brexit referendum exposed several illusions within our movement about the political character of the EU.

It distracted many from our case for independence outside the European Union. Sturgeon even employed what I thought were dangerous arguments for a democrat, insisting the EU vote should be rerun until Remain won! The SSP, by contrast, recommended a Remain vote only as the lesser of two evils.

And we were also right, in my view, to insist we all had to respect the result and move on. But the tortuous negotiations over leaving the EU left an indelible mark on what our post-UK talks might look like.

The repeated election of Tory governments also exposed the ineffective opposition gathered at Holyrood and Westminster. Nor has the performance of the Scottish Government enhanced the case for independence much.

Indeed, as I have written in The Scottish Socialist Voice this week, the First Minister’s decision to cut back the Winter Fuel Allowance in Scotland shows again how St Andrew’s House is apt to do Downing Street’s dirty work here instead of mobilising public support behind an effective mass opposition to cuts, privatisations and warmongering.

Nicola Sturgeon

Looking back, the 2020/21 Covid pandemic brought profound changes to our way of life. And it was followed by a cost of living crisis which also played into the hands of Unionists arguing now was not the time to leave the alleged “safe haven” of UK economic and social stability and familiarity.

The deterioration in public services in Scotland – run from Holyrood – and the spectacular demise of both Alex Salmond and Sturgeon, taken together with all the other factors mentioned above, mean we are probably looking at a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026.

Despite all this, the underlying instability of UK politics remains. Labour’s worst election result in 2019 was followed by the Tories’ own unprecedented humiliation in July.

Ahead loom the immense crises facing a Labour government without a programme fit for the challenges that lie ahead. All of which leaves us where?

Independence still enjoys 45% support. This remarkable statistic is intriguing as much for the reasons why some people no longer support Yes as for the attitude of those who now do.

It is also highly significant in my view that while support for the SNP in 2012 was considerably higher than for independence, today the reverse is true.

So, what challenges face our movement? Above all is the need to improve the case for Yes and to answer definitively certain fundamental questions – does independence represent substantial change or not? If it does, what kind of change will it be and primarily for whose benefit?

This Labour government will fail the immense challenges it faces. My view is that independence offers working people an escape hatch from a sinking UK ship and the prospect of real change.

But at the same time everyone in this movement must be prepared for the long-drawn-out character of this struggle.

We need to provide persuasive answers to the questions the Scottish electorate still has about the case for independence, how it will improve their economic, social and political conditions and how it is to be achieved.

Colin Fox is a founder member and the joint national spokesperson of the Scottish Socialist Party. He sat on the Yes Scotland advisory Board 2012-14 and is a regular contributor to Yes platforms across the country