Globalisation can’t help meaning that we’re all “in the same boat”; but on this noble vessel, most of the occupants can’t help being virtual “stowaways”, travelling either on fake documents and overdrawn credit-cards, or just secretly, smuggled or bribed aboard at night or in disguise. Now however, as the global process continues its erratic and ambiguous course, the rabble has begun appearing on deck, in broad daylight. And not just for the fresh air, or to admire the views.

Tom Nairn, Globalisation and nationalism: the new deal January 2012

When the prospect of independence was made tangible by the SNP’s victory in 2011, the Syrian Civil War had barely begun. Its daily diet of unspeakable suffering is now grinding towards its fifth year. The new revanchism of Putin seemed scarcely to have registered: the idea that the evisceration of former Russian satellites in the Caucasus would be replicated westward was more fanciful than credible. It seemed equally improbable that within four years Europe would be witnessing the greatest forced mass movement of refugees since the Second World War, while still coping with the deeply corrosive and radicalising impacts of the Eurozone crisis. In 2011 it was possible (just) that Europe might emerge out of the great recession with some kind of renewed purpose and social settlement. Yet, as its current divisions demonstrate — whether East-West or North-South — the periphery is increasingly alienated from the centre. Cameron’s sideshow act of naked political opportunism is just an extra contributor to the jarring noise of instability, albeit on a slightly different frequency.

What does all this have to do with the politics of our own damp patch? On the face of it, these concerns are all part of a failed geopolitical and economic order that the independence movement, now overwhelmingly dominated by the SNP, aimed to distance itself from. On the whole, it managed to do so with plenty of rhetorical flourish. Yet gradually, the simple, popular and rational narrative that austerity isn’t working will become increasingly hard to maintain as centre-left parties operate in an increasingly unsustainable economic structure. The electoral impossibility of tax hikes and ever mounting levels of debt make continued declines in living standards and ever greater inequality inevitable. Simply adjusting public spending by a percentage point or two ignores the far greater crises of globalisation that can, as demonstrated in Greece, pose an explicit threat to the peaceful co-existence of capitalism and democratic sovereignty. A desire to channel the magic of Obama-esque mass mobilisation and high-octane optimism was still prevalent amongst the political classes in 2011. With that promise of change via sheer hope now viewed as largely nominal and symbolic it’s hard for an optimistic vision of social change to gain credence within the current system.

One big factor that has unsettled the couthy assumptions of SNP independence is the black stuff. While the longer term impacts of the collapse of global oil prices in late 2014 remain to be seen, they serve as a reminder that, though it may be Scotland’s oil, the nation exists as part of a complex and volatile global economy, that allots few comforts to the vulnerable.

The awkward silence that surrounds the most salient issues around the future of Scotland’s economy (including the prominence of financial services) have come to represent a whole confessional of unspoken truths that progressive politicians everywhere are struggling to mouth. This is why Alex Bell was entirely correct to call for a reassessment of the economics of independence. Given that sustained independent research into this area is so obviously necessary, it remains mysterious that the only party with the clout, the scale and the founding commitment to Scottish sovereignty, seems so uninterested in conducting it. We need a broad, coherent and honest prospectus for independence that can be broadly articulated, beyond the immediate political needs of Scotland’s largest party.

Here, I think, is the heart of the matter. The independence movement had a deep fissure running through it that only the imminent prospect of a referendum could overcome. One side contended that Scotland is, on balance, fine in its current, SNP-governed, status. Independence was essentially a means to preserve Scotland and the consensus around which it has been governed since devolution. It would offer an opt-out from the worst of Tory austerity without rocking the boat too much.

The great unknown, that has in effect stymied the revival of any form of ‘Yes movement’ is whether a more transformative economic prospectus could have persuaded more Scots that a Yes vote was actually worth the risk. The desire to promote both change and continuity left much of the SNP dominated campaign fighting key battles on terrain like currency and economic stability which it could, by definition, never control.

The message inevitably became confused as voters were told ‘The most important decisions about Scotland will be taken by the people who care most about Scotland, that is by the people of Scotland.’ The universal ring of that aphorism was inevitably lost when it transpired that the people of Scotland were not, in fact, to be offered control of monetary policy under independence. If there is a continued move towards full self-government, the quality of the argument needs to allow for a consideration that, yes, indeed, Scotland might be worse off as as result. Certain sections of the Scottish economy and certain classes may have to suffer for the potential of a more just nation, charting its own course — a matter as radical as the creation of a new state needs a bigger vision to justify its enactment.

It may also have seemed possible in 2011, in a world still more innocent and hopeful than it has since become, that a notional fraternity between a new Scotland and rUK, would have underpinned negotiations to end the union. That now seems a somewhat less credible bet: take the Tory revival of its longstanding tradition of chauvinism during the election. This unpleasant, visceral form of calculated tribalism revealed the extent to which the English right has few qualms about mobilising anti-Scottish sentiment for political gain. The nature of that contest revealed two great ironies that now form the backdrop to Scotland’s political future. On the one hand, the party of union are consistently prepared to undermine it for short term electoral gain, while on the other, the SNP is committed to offering ‘transformation’ solely through devolved areas. All the while, its prospectus for independence still considers it fitting to place Scotland’s macro-economic policy in the hands of the hated Tories and the financiers that control the machinery of London’s ‘dark star’. The point here is not the lack of a case for monetary union — its merits were repeated so relentlessly that they may haunt the prospect of Scottish statehood for decades — it’s that, as the Eurozone crisis demonstrates, finance ministers are primarily concerned with the electability of their own governments and the often chauvinist concerns they rest upon.

The ‘fiscal waterboarding’ conducted upon an infant anti-austerity government in Athens was a deliberately brutal demonstration that sovereignty is increasingly subordinate to the demands of financial markets. The naivety of hopes for an alternative, though articulated with such clarity so recently, now sound like a lament in some lost language. We live in deeply uncompromising times. There is very little to counter-balance the force of the markets: they decided Scotland’s referendum and they imposed crippling collective punishment upon Greece. It is therefore vitally important that Scotland, using whatever means feasible, seeks to build up resilience in terms of the economic structures that govern it. So much has become destabilised since 2011 that we are, quite simply, living in a different geopolitical world sustained by an increasingly volatile and precarious economic system.

If we want Scotland to be more than a stowaway while crossing such treacherous waters, it is incumbent upon those with the power to develop alternative, genuinely transformative visions of what the country can be and to do so openly and honestly. This work should begin in advance of May’s election. However, given the timidity and the fear now stalking the corridors of this vast, unwieldy and complex global vessel, I’m not holding my breath.