I used to believe that Labour party spin but I'm just not sure the evidence backs up the hope
1979 didn't settle it, neither did 1999
Each time the nationalists regather themselves and with every little bit they can get they become emboldened before coming back for more. I think there was a time when we tended to listen to these Labour voices who advocated concessions, but anyone who now says that Devo Max would settle the deal is guessing. The history of establishment concession has been one of managed retreat as expendable morsals are cast from the high table in the hope of pacifying a baying populace below. It's reasonably well established pattern that the people get angry and protest, faced with the threat of this protest turning revolutionary those who have the most lose will cast down a concession to the minimum they can get away with. The evolution of democracy in the UK is the best example of it stretching from the 1832 Great Reform Act, the acceptance of organised labour unions, the adoption into the mainstream of a politicised labour party, lowering of the age at which people can vote and the widening of participation to include those who didn't own property, womens universal sufferage, and to some extent we're seeing the latest version of that play out with criminals (quite a few of whom also represent us too)
Having said that, it would be very much more difficult to win independence from a position of Devo Max imho, but, that's all it is, my humble opinion. I could easily see that if Scotland ran her own affairs successfully for 20 years under this regime, then it would only be a matter of time before someone said, "you know what, why don't we do this properly, we've all but proved we can". In this case it would be harder to use the scare tactics of the great unknown, as the debate would come down more to things like national security
It's ironic actually in that they could have put this on the ballot in the first place and saved a lot of the angst in between. At the time though the polls were something like 25/75 so Cameron thought he'd adopt a tough line and hope to humiliate the SNP and squash Scottish nationalism with it. That hasn't happened.
I get the impression that there are similarities in the maths of this with the AV campaign in the both started from unpromising positions, but two campaigns were fought with much greater energy and vigour set against two comparatively languid campaigns. Both relied on misinformation (although that number Nick Robinson did on Salmond the other day was pretty poor).
If memory serves me right the AV 'switchers' were something like 2 in every 7 from first polls to vote, and this figure might be similar in the referendum yet. It possibly points to wider human condition in terms of the percentage of population who are open to manipulation
