If we truly learn the lessons of 2014, we won't retreat to a left-wing comfort zone

I have to admit that I've been reading Bella Caledonia much less frequently since I found myself on the wrong end of the editor's antics in January, but my eye was caught today by an article from Harry Giles entitled 'Seven Ways to Win a Second Indy Referendum'.  It's a slightly odd piece, because it starts by reminding us that we lost the 2014 referendum by a 10% margin and that we need to learn the lessons, but then advances a strikingly familiar prospectus - we must increase voter participation, we must "stop diving to the right" (yeah, stop being so bloody right-wing, Nicola Thatcher!), we must build a multi-party coalition, we must offer people more than just independence, etc, etc.  Which of those things did we not do in 2014?  I know some Greens say they weren't sufficiently involved, but there are plenty of people who remember to their own personal cost that a belligerent 20-year-old Green activist called Ross Greer (now a 22-year-old Green MSP) was to a large extent calling the shots in the Yes campaign.

On participation, Harry reminds us that turnout has never topped 70% in any general election since 1997.  I'm almost inclined to say "so what?", because turnout in the independence referendum was much, much higher than that - it was in the mid-80s (an all-time record), and it's unlikely to get any higher on the second bite of the cherry.  The depressing reality is that we're going to have to repeat the Herculean get-out-the-vote feats of 2014, but even then Yes are going to be at a disadvantage as far as differential turnout is concerned, because younger and less affluent people (who are more likely to support independence) are always going to be proportionately less likely to vote.  Of course it's important to decrease the differential as much as humanly possible, but it's a pipe dream to imagine that, for example, turnout in working-class parts of Glasgow is going to be brought up fully to the national average.  There's no 'failing' from 2014 to be reversed there - simply an in-built disadvantage that will have to be offset by a sufficiently large pro-Yes swing.

Harry points out that women were less likely to vote Yes, and then rather dubiously blames that on 'zoomery' (including in the comments threads of the "angrier pro-indy blogs" - I do hope that includes this one!).  Wouldn't it be rather more plausible to say that there are much more fundamental reasons why women have a greater inclination than men to favour the status quo in a major constitutional referendum?  There's a tendency to present the gender gap as a problem that we'll know has been solved when the level of Yes support among men and women is identical, but the reality is that could just as easily mean that support for independence has fallen or flatlined among men, which self-evidently is not something we want to happen.  We need an increased Yes vote from both genders, and that may very well mean that the overall gender gap remains in place.  If we win the referendum on that basis, what's the issue?  Every vote is equal.

As far as the 'zoomery' thing is concerned, though, it would help enormously if on this occasion we don't have a few people on the pro-Yes side happily feeding the convenient media myth that the abuse comes disproportionately from independence supporters.  

Harry's call for us to "stop diving right" (which is of course code for "make a sharp left turn") is peculiarly juxtaposed with his demand for us to be more multi-party.  The simple fact is that much of the scope for building a broader Yes coalition is to be found on the centre-right, and in the centre.  Anecdotally, we all know that there are Lib Dems and small 'c' conservative Labour voters who are suddenly open to the idea of independence as a result of the EU referendum, so shouldn't we at least be exploring ways of bringing those people into the tent, rather than retreating to our 2014 comfort zone?

To quote our old friend Kevin Baker, it seems to me that Harry's idea of learning the lessons of 2014 essentially amounts to : "Do it again, only harder."