Liam McKeown has put the yes stickers back up in his windows. “I felt so angry I was in tears,” explained the social care worker, as he commiserated about the EU referendum result over a pint with fellow remain supporters in Glasgow. “But then I heard Nicola Sturgeon’s speech and I thought, bring it on.”
McKeown was drinking on Friday evening at the Yes Bar, a kitschy Italian cafe-bar in the city centre that was named the Vespbar until the 2014 Scottish independence campaign, when it became a hub for activists and promptly changed its moniker.
The owner of the bar, the SNP candidate and Women for Independence activist Suzanne McLaughlin, described the mood among her regulars on Friday.
“They were queuing outside when we opened. People just wanted to come together and talk about what’s happened.” The mood reminded her of 19 September 2014, she said, but with one crucial difference: “These are different people saying they’ll vote for independence when they couldn’t have before, and we have to welcome them with open arms.”
Only a day later, the vote to leave the EU is changing the terms on which people are viewing independence. McLaughlin predicts: “I’ve always supported independence for internationalist reasons, but that fear of isolation was the reason many people voted no last time. That’s completely different now that we’re leaving the EU.
“A couple of weeks ago I’d have told you that we needed to wait another five to 10 years to build support [for a second independence referendum], but now I think we do it while people still feel this way.”
Since the decision to leave the EU was confirmed in early on Friday morning, pro-independence political parties and campaign groups have reported a surge in support, both from traditional allies, galvanised by recent events, and new recruits.
An SNP source said the party had been inundated with emails from people who had previously voted no, but wanted to pledge their support for a second referendum with the aim of keeping an independent Scotland part of the EU.
The novelist and former Guardian columnist Jenny Colgan was an outspoken defender of the union in 2014. On Friday morning, she tweeted that she was crying with relief after listening to Nicola Sturgeon’s promise to defend the aspirations of Scots who had voted to remain.
She said: “My reasons for voting no last time, because I didn’t believe in separation and isolation, are what make me a yes voter now. I thought that it would be a hold-your-nose choice but actually I’m feeling quite excited that we have a way out of this horrible mess.”
There is certainly an understanding within the SNP of the need to make a new offer on independence now it not only improves on the gaps in the 2014 argument, most obviously currency and oil, but is tailored to a Scotland remaining within the EU while England and Wales leave.
A second general election in the autumn could afford the SNP the possibility of putting an even stronger commitment to a second independence referendum in another manifesto. There is also an acknowledgement, however, that the timing may be beyond the Scottish government’s control, particularly if they are required to dovetail the referendum process with Brexit negotiations.
Tommy Sheppard, one of the SNP’s most prominent Westminster MPs, had been expected to take a leading role in the party’s summer independence drive, a project Sturgeon announced before May’s Scottish parliament elections and aimed at building a consistent yes majority for the long-term.
In a thoughtful and provocative article that some considered an early application for the post of SNP deputy leader following the resignation of Stewart Hosie last month, Sheppard identified a group he described as “the I-curious”, people who were not ideologically opposed to independence, but had yet to be convinced on key questions such as currency and other economic concerns.
He believes the Brexit vote will have swelled their ranks: “It’s not the fact of Brexit but the political effect. We clearly do think that it will change the voting intentions of a significant number of those 2 million who voted no in 2014,” he said.
“It’s an insult to those people not to have the chance to reconsider now that the prospectus has changed. I think that most no voters made a considered judgment based on a number of factors, not least of which was remaining part of the EU.”
He could well have been describing the Harry Potter writer, JK Rowling, who made substantial donations to the pro-union Better Together campaign in 2014, and wrote compellingly of her hope that Scotland would remain part of the UK. She shocked followers on Friday when she corrected a correspondent on Twitter: “[Describing me as a] ‘staunch opponent’ implies I was pro-union no matter what, which was never the case. Many no voters will think again now.”
