There is a great prize for the No campaign in the pre-negotiation currency tactic: its nuclear nature may indeed blast the yes campaign’s apparent green shoots.
This is not the same as getting what you want, if what you want is a happy Scotland within your borders, or, in the event that that is not possible, a negotiation in which you best protect your interests. There is also a spectacular danger of the tactic backfiring. The lasting message to voters could be that a yes vote merely opens up negotiations such as we are getting a glimpse of this week. People are not stupid. Ordinary people might realise that if there are complex negotiations still to come, they will still have on-going political capacity to influence any Scottish negotiation position (and the Scottish government has committed to an all-party team), as to what degree of independence from the UK they want and what terms they are prepared to accept. Against that they may weigh up how their political and economic aspirations will be met by a UK government, which after all is supposed to be their government at the minute, which is prepared to lay Scotland to waste on the very narrowly defined self-interest of the rest of the country, because they have ‘no legal obligation’ not to.