THIS week marks 10 years since Scotland went to the polls for the first independence referendum.
Since then, polls have mapped highs and lows of Yes support – from peaks of up to 58% through the Covid pandemic as Scotland’s need to chart its own path came to the forefront of the public health conversation.
But backing for Yes has ebbed and flowed, and according to recent polling now stands almost exactly where it did 10 years ago.
With a decade behind us since that historic vote, The National hit the streets of Glasgow to find out how people in Scotland’s biggest city felt.
Overall, there was a majority in favour of independence – which may not be a huge surprise in one of Scotland’s “Yes cities”.
But there was still a strong opposition to the idea of breaking away from the UK, with one lady responding “don’t even say that word to me” when asked about the independence referendum.
But not everyone was so set on their opinions.
Also on the streets of Scotland there were some people who have changed their minds. As a YouGov poll published on Tuesday found, some 18% of people who voted Yes in 2014 have since changed their minds, compared to 11% of No voters.
Two such voters on the streets of Glasgow told this paper that they felt the world was a very different place now to 2014, and they would reconsider voting Yes as a result.
However, others raised the point that some key changes since 2014 – such as leaving the EU after the 2016 Brexit referendum – would be making people think about voting Yes rather than No.
To truly find out how the people of Scotland would vote on independence, the only fair way would be to ask them in a second referendum.
However, until Unionist politicians see fit to put their repeated claims that independence is dead to the test, Scots won’t get the chance to have their say.
