THE Scottish Independence Convention which has promised to re-launch itself on St Andrew’s Day at the end of next month has today published an open letter to the Yes movement outlining the way ahead for the organisation and calling for donations to help achieve its aim of independence.
The Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) has now elected six executive committee members including Elaine C Smith as convenor, and ex-SNP MSP for the Highlands and Islands Dave Thompson in his capacity representing Christians for Independence as vice-convenor.
The other members of the Committee are treasurer Rosemary Hunter of Women For Independence; Mary McCabe of Pensioners for Independence; Maggie Chapman of the Scottish Greens; independence researcher Iain Black and Jonathon Shafi of the Radical Independence Campaign. In all, some 19 pro-indy organisations elected them, ranging from the SNP to NHS for Yes, and Business for Scotland to Common Weal.
READ MORE: Inside the SIC's open letter to the Yes movement
Some 14 individuals have been co-opted as members of the SIC, including the editor of the Sunday National, Richard Walker, lawyer Aamer Anwar and Wee Ginger Dug columnist Paul Kavanagh.
The members of the Executive Committee have jointly signed the Open Letter which asks the Yes movement to help fund SIC as a national campaign organisation.
The letter identifies the need for a national organisation to improve coordination of the independence campaign, the creation of a strategy to achieve it, and also better communication including the rebuttal of stories in a hostile media.
Mentioning conversations with no or undecided voters, the letter states: “The independence movement needs to be more on the front foot at making our stories the starting point for these conversations, because it is the conversations undecided voters have with each other which is the most important thing. We need to find ways to set the agenda, to change the story and to get people to look at our case again.”
Proposing the creation of a paid team of five full-time campaigners, including a coordinator and media officer, the letter continues: “Our fundraising campaign is about raising the money to do these things. It is not about repeating the mistakes of the past – paying salaries that are far too high, wasting money on things that don’t matter, being too cloth-eared to the grassroots of the movement.”
SIC vice-convener Dave Thompson said the national campaign organisation had no intention of being the outright leader of the independence movement nor would it fulfil the same role as the Yes campaign did prior to the 2014 referendum.
He told The National: “This is actually about helping to get the polls above the 50% mark for Yes between now and when First Minister Nicola Sturgeon calls the referendum.
“We just want to assist in that process, offering a hub to facilitate the various indy organisations. There are lots of us doing stuff in different spheres all over Scotland and that’s fantastic. We think we can act as a resource hub as much as anything else.”
Asked about the SIC’s relationship to the Scottish Government and the SNP, Thompson said: “The SNP are members of our organisation and as one of the two or three bigger groups they have two votes, as do Women for Independence and the Scottish Greens.
"The other organisations have one vote but the fact is that we do not often have the need for a vote as there is a great deal of consensus in our organisation.
READ MORE: Sturgeon should share the limelight – and put trust in Team SNP
“We have concluded a memorandum of understanding which can be seen on our website and which explains how it all works. It is a sort of constitution, a way of us all working together
Thompson said that the strategy mentioned in the Open Letter was not about control.“We are not talking about setting policies for the campaign or an indy Scotland,” said Thompson. “It is for individual groups to set their own policies and as we go forward, the strategy we want as a hub is how do we help the various indy-supporting groups and share best practice.”
Thompson said that there was no target for the funding exercise and the number of jobs would depend on how much was raised.
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