It must be surreal to be accused of organising a publicity stunt by members of the party that brought us the Great Blue British passport. Indeed what was the EU referendum other than a massive exercise in attention-seeking staged in the name of reclaiming the UK’s sovereignty?

Given their obsession with “taking back control”, you would think the Conservatives, and particularly the Brexiteers, would be the first to understand the frustration of the SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford over the disregard with which Scottish interests were treated during the truncated debate over the EU withdrawal bill. Instead they mocked and sneered as Blackford and the other MPs exited the chamber.

There are those who insist the mass walkout was not orchestrated. “How could the MPs have been sure the speaker, John Bercow, would turn down Blackford’s request for a vote on a private sitting of the House of Commons during PMQs?” they ask. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether the gesture was planned or not. The only material questions are these: was it justified and was it effective?

On the justification issue, there can be little doubt. The decision to allow just 15 minutes for a debate on the Westminster government’s proposed power grab was a wilful provocation, while the filibustering of that debate by Tory MP David Lidington added insult to injury.

The subsequent passing of the legislation without the consent of Holyrood represented a ripping up of the devolution settlement that could not go unprotested. Remember, the Scottish parliament has already passed a continuity bill which demands that powers historically devolved to Holyrood, but overseen by Brussels, should be repatriated to Scotland when we leave the EU. The bill was supported by every party bar the Conservatives, yet Theresa May is challenging its validity through the supreme court. The undermining of the Sewel convention was another unambiguous statement outlining the contempt in which Holyrood is held. But just in case it wasn’t explicit enough, the political editor of the Sunday Times, Tim Shipman, obligingly underlined the position in a string of tweets in which he suggested Scotland had no more right to a say on Brexit than Manchester.

On the question of whether or not the protest was effective, there are two schools of thought. Some, including Bercow, insist that walking out merely deprived those SNP MPs with questions on the order paper of the opportunity to make their case; the hoopla it created also deflected attention from May’s ineptitude. On the other hand, the mass exit pushed the Westminster government’s attack on the devolution settlement to the top of the national news agenda in a way that the Scottish parliament’s rejection of the EU withdrawal bill had not. It allowed Blackford to present himself as a force to be reckoned with and gave the current cohort of SNP MPs another chance to demonstrate strength in unity. This, in turn, emphasised the disarray within the Labour party which suffered six frontbench resignations.

All this, without taking into account the way the uproar appears to have boosted SNP membership. After Blackford’s expulsion, Twitter was buzzing with people who claimed to have joined the party as a result, with the party putting the number at 5,085 in 24 hours. Politically, that seems like a successful day’s work.

Of course, the swelling of the SNP’s ranks could be ephemeral. The party experienced a bounce in the wake of the independence referendum and another one after the leave vote. Yet a recent YouGov poll found 52% of Scots opposed another independence referendum within the next five years. It was this apparent lack of public appetite that led the first minister Nicola Sturgeon to try to shift the focus away from the fixing of a date for a second vote at last weekend’s conference.

Even so, the walkout does feel pivotal. It cannot be a coincidence that the former editor of the Daily Record, Murray Foote, chose Thursday to declare himself an independence supporter. Foote is the man who masterminded the Vow – a front-page pledge of further devolution signed by the then Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders – which ran a few days before the 2014 referendum. Given that some independence supporters hold the Vow responsible for the no vote, the symbolic significance of Foote’s change of heart should not be underestimated.

As for ordinary voters, they may not be greatly exercised about the finer points of the constitution; they may not have followed the complex arguments over the common frameworks for the repatriation of powers. But they can hear the mood music; they know when their parliament is being slighted. Already frustrated over the democratic deficit that allows Scotland to be taken out of the EU when every part of the country voted remain, many of them will look askance at the dismissive way Conservative politicians behaved in the chamber on Wednesday.

The anger SNP MP Joanna Cherry displayed as she shouted “This isn’t funny” will be echoed around much of the country. Anyone who doesn’t understand the potential impact of such condescension on the psyche of Scottish voters wasn’t paying enough attention last time around.

• Dani Garavelli is a freelance journalist and columnist for Scotland on Sunday