As a Scot, I voted No in the 2014 independence referendum, and if the referendum were held tomorrow I would vote No again. My decision in 2014 was based on the economic uncertainties which Scottish independence entailed and I believed that, all things considered, we were ‘better together’.

However, Nicola Sturgeon announced at the SNP conference that an Independence Referendum Bill would be published this week. While Sturgeon has refused to present a timeline for another referendum, or even say that there will definitely be one, many believe that they will soon be voting on the future of their nation once more. I know lots of people who don’t want another referendum; they say we should accept the results of 2014 and this year’s EU referendum and get on with it. It’s not that they are happy to be leaving the EU, but they want to move on from these divisive ‘us and them’ campaigns.

Yet in their manifesto for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, the SNP said that another independence referendum would only be called if there was “sustained evidence” that a majority of Scots wanted independence, or if there was a “significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will”.

Scotland made its feelings on Europe pretty clear, with 62 per cent of votes cast for Remain. Now, it looks increasingly likely that Scotland will be taken out of the EU against its will. While I wouldn’t vote for Scottish independence tomorrow, I understand the betrayal that Scots felt on the morning of 24th June. One of the key arguments put forward by the Better Together campaign in 2014 was that, by leaving the UK, Scotland would lose its membership of the EU.

The dangers of Scotland ‘going it alone’ outside of the EU and losing the supposed influence that the UK had in the EU were emphasised by the No campaign. Scotland would not automatically become a member of the EU, they argued, and so would have to negotiate a possible entry into the EU, which would bring further economic uncertainty.

Speaking from personal experience, economic uncertainty and leaving the EU were key factors which made me vote No. I felt that membership of the EU was too important for our country. And it would seem, at that time, many others were persuaded by these arguments too. So it is no wonder that many Scots are outraged that, a mere two years after this vote, we face the prospect of being dragged out of the EU by the UK government.

Facebook newsfeeds are never a great place to be the morning after an election, but one thing that struck me the morning after the EU referendum was an image of the electoral map of Scotland, with every local area coloured yellow for Remain, shared by lots of Scottish friends. They were all, more or less, expressing the same sentiment: this result is not fair, it in no way reflects the view of the majority of Scottish people.

The result of the EU referendum reinforces an underlying issue which led so many to vote for independence in 2014: while Westminster may occasionally pay lip service to Scotland, we make up less than a tenth of the UK population, so even if we all voted for the same result in an election, if the rest of the UK votes for a different result then we have to accept the outcome.

While this seems unfair to many people, if Scotland is just another region of the UK, then this is the way it should be. But even as a No voter myself, I think there is something distinct about Scotland which cannot just be subsumed into the rest of the UK. While on my Year Abroad in France last year, whenever someone asked where I was from, the answer was always ‘Scotland’. Why not Britain? After all, that’s what my passport says, I am a British citizen. But national identity in the UK is more complicated than that and this, in part, is where the problem lies.

A Great Brexit Britain could learn a lot from Berlin

While many argue the case for independence in terms of Scotland being a nation in its own right and deserving a government it chooses, a major stumbling block to Scottish independence remains: the economy. Once reaching $120 per barrel and despite optimistic predictions for the future of this industry from the Yes campaign, the price of North Sea oil per barrel is now closer to $50. These figures do not make for happy reading for supporters of Scottish independence. In 2014, the Yes campaign seemed to avoid getting into the specifics of the economics of Scottish independence, as no one really knew what those economics would be.

Arguments in favour of independence were seen by many as matters of the heart rather than the head. With the economic outlook for an independent Scotland looking even less favourable now, it is likely that a future independence campaign would focus on the same again, and not necessarily be unsuccessful; the EU referendum showed that these ‘heart’ arguments can be extremely powerful and their impact on the voters should not be underestimated.

But the Better Together campaign cannot, in the current circumstances, argue that voting against Scottish independence is a vote for continuity and economic stability, as the UK looks set to leave the EU and the value of the pound falls rapidly. Facing an increasingly uncertain future within the United Kingdom, it’s still not clear which path Scotland will take.