Thoughts on the SNP’s independence strategy

We are back from our trip to England, and before writing anything else I have to tell you that both my other half and I are completely besotted with our new baby granddaughter. I realise that I am contractually obliged to be biased, but Ivy is gorgeous. She’s a very happy little girl, full of smiles and giggles, and I am immensely proud of her and my daughter, who is doing a wonderful job of being a new mother despite the fact that the baby’s father left her shortly after Ivy was born. But as my daughter rightly points out, she’s better off without him. It’s his loss. Ivy is a beautiful ray of sunshine in what has otherwise been a very difficult year.

But back to business.

For months, the broader independence movement has been pleading with John Swinney and the SNP leadership to start talking more about independence and to present a credible strategy for achieving independence. He has indeed started to talk more about independence and has presented his strategy for achieving it. It’s just a crying shame that almost no one in the grass roots independence movement, or even the grass roots SNP for that matter, thinks John Swinney’s strategy is at all credible.

If we put the bells and whistles to one side, essentially what this strategy boils down to is that an SNP majority in Holyrood following next May’s Scottish elections will lead to Keir Starmer performing yet another of his screeching U-turns and agreeing to facilitate another Scottish independence referendum.

SNP MSP Keith Brown has told T he National that a victory for the SNP in next year’s Scottish election, together with a constitutional convention calling for Scotland’s right to decide, would put pressure on the UK Government that it wouldn’t be able to “hide” from.

Unfortunately that rests upon the assumption that the SNP and the independence movement are dealing with honourable and principled opponents who respect democracy and the right of the people of Scotland to choose their own destiny. All the evidence strongly suggests that the Westminster parties only respect the will of the people of Scotland as expressed through the ballot box when the people of Scotland give them an answer to Westminster’s liking. They are aided and abetted in their travesty of the democratic process by their willing accomplices in the Scottish media, which only believes in holding power to account when that power is wielded by the SNP and the Scottish Government.

If it had been otherwise we’d have had an independence referendum following the 2021 Scottish election, the campaigning for which was dominated by the issue of a second independence referendum and which resulted in the election of the largest pro-independence majority in the history of the devolved Scottish Parliament. Until that point, Scottish politics had operated on the belief that the democratic way to demonstrate Scotland’s wish for an independence referendum was to elect a Scottish Parliament with a majority of MSPs in favour of holding one.

As we all know, that election was followed by a concerted campaign of goalpost shifting and gaslighting from Labour, the Tories, and the Lib Dems, who were determined not to allow the trifling fact that they had just lost an election get in the way of imposing their will on the people of Scotland. We learned that an election which had centred on the issue of another independence referendum had not in fact been about an independence referendum at all. We also learned that getting an independence referendum would require an SNP majority without taking account of any other pro-independence parties, or that what would really be needed was a majority of votes cast to be for the SNP, whatever the anti-democratic British nationalists thought would prove more difficult to achieve.

Neither Labour nor the Tories have specified the conditions under which Scotland’s electorate can demonstrate that it does indeed want another independence referendum. They know that doing so leaves them hostage to fortune and will give them no room for maneouvre when the conditions are met. It’s far more advantageous for Labour and the Tories to pay lip service to the idea that the UK is a voluntary union without having to do anything to prove it, safe in the knowledge that the overwhelmingly anti-independence media in Scotland will only ever make a token effort to hold them to account for their disrespect for the democratic process.

Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that the SNP did in fact win an absolute majority of Holyrood seats following next May’s election, does anyone really believe that Keir Starmer is then going to turn round and say – OK, you can have your independence referendum then. Of course he won’t. Instead we’d get some version of “Now is not the time,” or some other gaslighting about how the election wasn’t really about an independence referendum at all.

I wish I could share Keith Brown’s confidence. He told The National: “I know some people do [believe Westminster would continue to refuse a referendum], and I understand the cynicism because of the way that Westminster’s behaved.”

He added: “But I believe if you get the convention campaign right, if you marshal that broad-based campaign … I’m talking about civic bodies in Scotland, I’m talking about companies in Scotland, individuals, every single MSP, MP, councillor, that believes in Scotland’s right to decide, not necessarily independence, but Scotland’s right to decide.

“I’m talking about the international opinion which supports the principle of self-determination.”

He insisted that a majority combined with a civic push would provide an “unquestionable” mandate.

“I think those two things together will mean that Westminster won’t have the ability, they’ve nowhere to hide in relation to this.

“That’s what I believe.”

The fact is that Westminster cannot afford to lose Scotland. The UK economy needs Scotland’s resources, Scotland keeps the lights on in England, and provides a convenient berth for the nukes which are essential to the global pretensions of British nationalism. No British Prime Minister wants to go down in the history books as the PM who ‘lost’ Scotland and the fact that support for independence is now consistently over 50% in opinion polling is an active disincentive to conceding to demands for a referendum.

The hard truth is that the Scottish independence campaign is rather more like a campaign for civil liberties and equality such as those fought by politically or numerically marginalised groups like the LGBT community or ethnic minority communities. Scotland is effectively a marginalised minority within the UK. You don’t get independence, or equality for a minority group, by being well-behaved. You don’t win through stage-managed conferences and avoiding controversy. You win it by pushing the line. By risking consequences. By standing up when you’re told to sit down – and refusing. You win it by making a nuisance of yourself, by being disruptive and by refusing to be silenced. You don’t ask nicely. You demand, you take, you create alternative power structures and defiantly challenge the status quo.

I agree that good governance at Holyrood is vital and by most metrics and in most areas, the SNP administration is doing a better job than Labour in Wales or the Tories and now Labour in England. Unfortunately that doesn’t cut through to the electorate thanks to a media which downplays or ignores all Scottish successes and dwells at length on failure. The lesson is that you can’t manage your way to independence, particularly with the toxic imbalance in the Scottish media landscape.

We desperately need a pro-independence majority in the next Scottish Parliament to act as a bulwark against the authoritarian right wing tendencies of Keir Starmer and the far right English nationalism of Nigel Farage who is circling the dying body of UK politics like a vulture. Independence for Scotland will require a pro-independence Scottish Parliament acting in concert with an SNP majority of Scottish MPs elected at the next Westminster general election with both being prepared to precipitate a constitutional crisis and employ a strategy of institutional disobedience at Holyrood. The SNP MPs should use every arcane prcedural rule in Westminster’s book to prevent the Commons from functioning. The goal should be to wrest a referendum out of an unwilling Westminster or hold a de facto referendum in Scotland. Either way it will require courage and boldness.

Unfortunately there’s little sign of boldness or a willingness to be confrontational in John Swinney’s plan.

But all is not lost. There is a willingness to be bold amongst ordinary SNP members. Forty-three SNP branches have backed a motion ahead of the party’s conference calling on the SNP to look instead to winning a mandate based upon the sum total of votes for pro-independence parties. The members’ motion submitted for approval reads: “Conference instructs the Party to prioritise obtaining a mandate from the sovereign Scottish people to deliver independence. This will be possible by achieving a majority of the popular vote on the sum of the Independence Supporting Parties’ List Votes in the 2026 Scottish parliamentary election.”

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