Getting the indy band back together

It’s been a good couple of weeks for hopes of Scottish independence, with some very positive opinion poll results, and signs of a new assertiveness amongst the main pro-independence parties. It’s a glimmering of hope in the stormy skies of British politics, where the dark looming clouds of the far right threaten a torrent which will wash away everything decent, compassionate, and humane.

Let’s start with the Scottish Greens who this week announced that they will unveil a paper detailing a new ‘brave and combative’ independence strategy ahead of the party’s National Council meeting in November. The strategy will then be officially announced in December or early 2026. The party’s new co-leader Ross Greer has said that the strategy will include a more effective use of Holyrood’s existing powers, pushing the limits of devolution, and being more prepared to get into political fights with Westminster.

It’s a very welcome development from the Scottish Greens under their new co-leaders Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay who were elected in August, and represents a renewed emphasis on independence from the party. Gone is the willingness to set independence aside which we saw under the previous leadership with former co-leader Lorna Slater saying Labour’s anti-democratic opposition to independence would not necessarily be a ‘red line’ for the Scottish Greens to reach a coalition or cooperation deal with Labour which could see Anas Sarwar installed as First Minister after the next Scottish elections. This is a very stark contrast to the current position under Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay with Ross Greer saying he finds it “very hard to imagine” doing a deal with Labour and Gillian Mackay saying that given what we are currently seeing from Labour at Westminster, doing a deal with Labour in Holyrood would “probably be impossible.”

The new emphasis on Scottish independence stems from the realisation that the political climate in the UK is growing increasingly hostile to green ideals, with Reform UK and the Tories expressing open hostility to measures to reduce the carbon footprint while expanding the use and exploitation of fossil fuels. For its part Reform denies the reality of anthropogenic climate change with its deputy leader Richard Tice dismissing it as garbage. Meanwhile the Labour party is embracing nuclear energy and looking to foist it upon a Scotland where it is neither needed nor wanted.

It’s not just green ideals which are threatened in the UK, it’s basic decency, compassion and humanity. The same people who lied to us about Brexit are now telling us that it’s British membership of the European Convention on Human Rights which is holding the UK back and limiting British sovereignty. Wannabe populist Russell Findlay has today announced that the Scottish Tories fully back the decision of Kemi Badenoch to withdraw from the ECHR if the Tories form the next UK government. Findlay is a political paradox, a populist who is deeply unpopular. His espousal of ever further right Reform-chasing craziness is a symptom of his knowledge that his party is circling the electoral toilet and is likely to be flushed away at the next election.

Reform have already made leaving the ECHR a key plank of their policy. It’s a sign of how much to the right British politics have been driven that the extremist idea of leaving the ECHR, putting the UK in the same boat as Russia and Belarus, is now accepted as mainstream. The correct response by a journalist when a British politician says that they want the UK to leave the ECHR ought to be an incredulous: “Are you out of your tiny mind?”

Instead this insane idea, which threatens the civil, employment, environmental, and human rights of all of us, is normalised and legitimised by a media which has forgotten that its primary role is supposed to be to hold power to account. This is how the envelope of acceptable political discourse is driven ever further to the far right. Right wing politicians do not want to tear up human rights law in order to make our lives better. They want to do it in order to facilitate their campaign of authoritarian control.

The other welcome sign that the Scottish independence movement is starting to organise itself to resist the growing authoritarianism of the Westminster parties is the announcement that the SNP and independence campaigning group Believe in Scotland have signed a working agreement which aims to reunite, reinvigorate and reset the independence movement.

The agreement is a signal of the new willingness of the SNP to engage constructively with the grassroots independence campaign.

The SNP and Believe in Scotland have agreed to work together in order to:

Convince the public of the benefits of independence, focusing on the tangible, direct improvements it can bring to people’s lives, communities, and Scotland’s wellbeing and long-term prosperity;
Champion the sovereign right of the Scottish people to decide their future, honouring the decision that Scotland’s constitutional future must rest with its people;
The SNP will join BiS in building a wider platform for unity and engagement across the independence movement through the Scottish Independence Congress.
And encourage civic participation, ensuring the campaign for independence is built with and for the people of Scotland, through inclusive dialogue, engagement, and grassroots involvement.

Believe in Scotland has also reached out to the other pro-independence parties which are represented in the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Greens and Alba’s Ash Regan, and the organisation reports that “after positive initial conversations we are optimistic about progressing similar understandings with them soon.” Believe in Scotland will also continue to work with non-party Yes organisations to explore opportunities for working together and building a broad based and inclusive civic movement.

After years of fruitless infighting and arguments about process while the anti-independence parties look on with satisfaction, the independence movement and the SNP are finally getting the band back together. It’s about time. We desperately need some hopeful political music to unite us, inspire us, and to defeat the fear and scaremongering of the Anglo-British far right and an increasingly authoritarian Labour party.

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