ASSUMING we’re granted permission to run a referendum, can we win it? Yes, we can. Many commentators predicted that the 2014 result would demoralise and destroy support for independence. But three years on, support has remained stubborn, consistent, at a little less than half the population. The Yes side is motivated, the other confused, and Scotland knows the “stability” of the status quo isn’t an option any longer.

The recent Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey – the most authoritative of its kind – gives a flavour of our advantages. It shows that number of people who prefer full-on independence to other constitutional options has doubled since 2012. Also, for the first time since the survey began in 1999, there are more people who back full-on independence than people who want a modified form of devolution.

A full 80 per cent of the country wants full Scottish sovereignty or full control over everything except “defence” and foreign affairs.

Maybe 2014 didn’t revolutionise Scottish politics, but it has proved a defining moment. It’s built a stable base for Scottish independence that isn’t going away, which has remained intact almost without changing for three years.

The trouble is, what about 2016? All the evidence suggests that, despite 62 percent of Scotland backing the Remain side, there has been little real change in attitudes towards independence since the Brexit vote. Basically, there’s still 45-plus-a-bit per cent backing the Yes side, as there has been pretty much without fail since 2014. There might yet be a material change in circumstances coming, but so far there’s no meaningful change in polling numbers.

Why? The SSA offers a counterintuitive but important answer. Scotland, it argues, is actually, increasingly, more than a tad Eurosceptic. When devolution started, a full 38 per cent of Scotland wanted to increase the EU’s powers; today, the figure is just eight per cent. In 1999, only 40 per cent of Scotland wanted to leave the EU or reduce its powers; today, it’s more than two-thirds.

In that sense, Scotland’s attitudes to Europe aren’t necessarily that distinct from England. So why did the country vote so differently in 2016? Previous research by Professor John Curtice, the acknowledged expert in the field, hit on two factors. First, since voters do not understand the complexities of the EU, they tend to follow authority figures from the party they trust. In Scotland, except for a few piddling Tories, all elected politicians backed Remain, enthusiastically.

Second, there’s the question of protest. In 2016, English voters protested what they saw as elite politics by voting Leave. In Scotland, many voters – particularly Yes voters, and especially those in the “Yes bubble” – protested Westminster by voting Remain. None of this, of course, had much to do with the European Union itself.

Euroscepticism, the SSA suggests, is everywhere in Scotland, despite surface appearances. Nearly two-thirds of Yes supporters are measurably Eurosceptic, and a third voted to Leave. Even 56 percent of Remain voters want to reduce the EU’s powers.

Let’s turn to the specifics.

Why aren’t the polls for independence rising?

Curtice points to a crucial statistic. Among 2014 Yes voters who voted Remain, 86 per cent still back independence; among 2014 Yes voters who voted Leave, only 65 per cent are still Yes. In other words, a marked Europhilia may be losing us votes, almost certainly among working-class communities and in rural fishing areas.

Yes, we may pick up Europhile votes, particularly in the boardrooms and among the professional middle class who are the biggest backers of the EU. But since we’re also draining our own base, we won’t end up much higher overall.

What conclusions should we draw from this? For me, it suggests that while the Brexit vote might be crucial in winning us the right to a second referendum, we can’t rely on it for campaigning purposes. Once you move outside the insider bubble, Scottish Europhilia doesn’t exert a strong pull, despite the superficial appearance of the 2016 vote. It might still grow, if Brexit becomes noticeably, unambiguously an economic disaster, but so far the economy has been improving relative to Osborne’s disastrous reign.

When members of the public ask me about independence, I don’t talk about Europe. Not if I can avoid it.

Instead, I say this: another 20 years of likely unopposed Tory rule will be a disaster. Scotland has exhausted every form of protest. There’s no electoral reform coming, no united, electable opposition coming, no end in sight for austerity. Our leaders are crawling on their hands and knees to Donald Trump for a trade deal and they’re sleazing up to the world’s worst dictators in a craven attempt to sell them military hardware.

Within that overall narrative arc, you can talk about Europe if you wish. I’m among the two-thirds of Scottish people who would like to see the EU substantially changed, junked or (here’s my preference) re-established on more social grounds. But I don’t believe that Brexit negotiated by right-wing Tories is going to be some sort of picnic. Phillip Hammond’s promise to meet EU retaliatory action by slashing corporation tax is an ominous warning of things to come. And, yes, in the Brexit negotiations, the Tories have rudely ignored devolved institutions with typical the typical pig-headed arrogance of people running a one-party state.

Nonetheless, the Yes campaign needs to offer space for people with legitimate suspicions of the EU. Otherwise, we’ll remain stuck in first gear.

The Tories are growing in Scotland by being the “red, white and blue” party of British patriotism. Increasingly, they will dominate the No side as Labour continue to plummet. That’s to our advantage. Although much has changed since 2014, I still believe a clear majority of the country distrust the Tories and fear for any future under leaders like David Cameron and Theresa May.

A lot of Scottish Remain voters made their choice knowing full well the horrors of the current European Union set-up, because they hate the Tories. A lot of Scottish Leave voters also voted for independence, in a double anti-establishment protest about the miseries of austerity.

Things are polarised in the bubble world of the Holyrood village. But the outside world is complicated, and while we can win this referendum, the quickest route to a losing strategy is to confuse bubble opinion with public opinion. Just ask Hillary Clinton.