Suzanne McLaughlin: How one night at Yesbar convinced me independence would come

Instead the place was jumping, rammed with independence supporters desperate to be in the company of like-minded people, dancing, singing and certain in the knowledge that their dream would live on. It represented in microcosm the reaction of the independence movement itself.

The day before the vote on September 18, 2014, I spent the day much as I normally spend Hogmanay: making a pot of soup, baking shortbread, buying a bottle of good malt whisky and a bottle of champagne. I was convinced that we would soon be welcoming the arrival of a newborn country, opening the doors of Yesbar, and preparing for the party to end all parties.

After the polls had closed, I left Yesbar excited and energised. The atmosphere in the bar had been electric. I was headed to watch the results with my friends Debs and Alasdair, who had two bottles of 30-year-old Laphroaig Royal Warrant kept aside for when we gained our independence.

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Predictions were displayed along the bottom of the telly screen until the first votes came in. At around 1.30am we learned that Orkney and Clackmannanshire had voted No. My heart plummeted. The party was over. I opened the whisky and went to bed in tears.

I remembered then as I remember now – as we stand on the cusp of a second independence referendum – my own journey to Yes.

I grew up in a left-wing Labour family. The daughter of a teenage single mum, I was brought up with tales of poverty in the Ireland that my great grandparents had left to avoid. They settled in Anderson, a then thriving largely Irish community close to Finnieston and Partick.

They benefited directly from the old Labour values and the social contract Labour made with the working people of the UK. Pay your taxes, believe in us, vote for us, they promised, and we’ll look after you. And for a while they lived up to that promise. Libraries, swimming pools, an NHS free at point of use and an investment in people, free education and benefits for those who need them, strong trade union laws and affordable social housing. My family gave Labour not just their vote but also their hearts and minds and they subscribed to the UK, a belief in pooling and sharing was engrained in a house that had previously flown the red flag.

My mum was born in 1948, the same year as the NHS, and her parents envisaged a brighter future for her and their future grandchildren,

Fast forward 30 years. Thatcher takes power in the UK. For almost the next 20 years Scotland will be ruled by Conservatives it did not vote for. And it was Tory ideals which lead to the birth of New Labour, Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievement and Tony Blair’s failed project that led to an increasingly right-wing UK and an illegal war in Iraq.

After that I no longer believed in the Union as a credible constitutional arrangement. I had joined Women For Independence and had been campaigning for independence ferociously in my community and at woman’s groups and café conversations.

I had long been a committed republican and socialist and come to believe that the arithmetic of an unjust Union meant the UK had come to mean English rule. I would have never called myself a nationalist and I could see that Scotland’s thirst for independence was not born of blood-and-soil nationalism but from a desire to live in an inclusive and progressive nation which would truly reflect the values and needs of its people.

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I heard Asda boss Andy Clarke and Waitrose gaffer Sir Charlie Mayfield on constant repeat, warning of food price hikes and businesses closing down, Kaye Adams broadcasting predictions of disaster on the wireless and, of course, saw the permanently wheeled-out former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown chuntering on about chaos and pension loss, economic disaster and ruination. The scene painted was almost apocalyptic in its portrayal of impending doom. Project Fear was in full mode in almost every newspaper and on every BBC report.

Better Together turned my stomach. So-called socialists that I had once admired were happily photographed coorying in with Tory politicians.

Then I opened a wonderful edition of the Sunday Herald newspaper, embracing the principle of independence. I looked out of my pub window and the sun was shining. It seemed to shine every day that summer. Policemen danced with so-called neds and mammies on every street corner. Political conversations were heard in bars, at bus stops, in the streets. Everywhere there were signs of Yes positivity; hope over fear, spontaneous music, good natured and joyful flourishing of community activism and political engagement, passionate participation.

We owned the Vespbar in the city centre at the time and talked of putting up posters proclaiming “Vespbar the Yes bar”. I won’t deny that drink had been taken, but one thing led to another and we found ourselves on the phone to the Vespbar sign guy. How quickly could he change the signs on our pub? Could it be before we sobered up? A quick call was put into Yes Scotland to ask if we could use the font. The answer, of course, was Yes.

The next morning I woke up and our wee pub Twitter account had gone from 200 followers to more than 10,000. The phone was ringing off the hook with media requests. We had apparently gone viral. The sign above the door now said Yesbar and the people of Glasgow – a Yes city – had taken us to their hearts.

I was very aware of the risk I was taking to our livelihoods but we followed our hearts. I believed then, as I do now, that supporting independence is perfectly normal. If those businesses who supported independence remained silent and allowed business leaders to talk only of independence being a threat, the impression would be that the entire business world supported remaining in the Union and I knew that wasn’t true. I like to think of myself as a savvy businesswoman and I read and understood the economics of both sides of the debate. I knew for sure that staying in the elitist, centralised Westminster-led Union represented the biggest risk to my fellow citizens.

So Yes, the referendum result was crushing. My experience at Yesbar had convinced me we would win. Rosie Kane and other musicians for Yes strumming guitars, singing songs and telling tales of socialism and acitvism with a joke or two flung in, in the Yesbar basement. I lived on Byres Road and almost every window was a Yes window. Journos and pundits who popped in for a pint were telling me that the Yes clearly had it.

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I spent the morning after the vote at Culloden, nursing my wounds, drinking whisky and, trite as it sounds, apologising to the past for our 2014 failure.

But I wasn’t even half way round the battlefield when something almost magical seemed to start to happen. Twitter was exploding, the bar’s manager called us and suggested we get back to the bar quickly.

She had opened the bar door to a queue of folk wanting in and something was happening, she said. People weren’t despondent … they were getting more energised by the moment. We very quickly “uncancelled’’ the indy celebration party we had organised and cancelled just hours before. A quick phone call to DJ Tam Coyle to confirm he could still provide the music. And so it began …

I knew watching the party that night that the independence movement had far from given up and that we would have our chance again.

And on this anniversary, thanks to the string of Westminster’s broken promises and cynical lies, we stand once more on the edge of taking control of our destiny. It’s coming yet for a’ that. #Indyref2 2021