The Yes movement’s radical wing is reawakening – and this is why

RIC’s high point was in those two hectic, passionate years in the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum. Arguably, it was RIC’s energy and focus on reaching the deprived parts of Scotland bypassed by traditional politics which tipped the scales and nearly got us past the winning post. But five years on, and deep in Brexit doodoo, where does the radical wing of the independence movement stand? Was it the old lags meeting in the Radisson Blu in Glasgow to reminisce about their glory days, while the new vanguard of Extinction Rebellion occupies the streets? Amazingly, anything but. I can report that RIC is not only in fine fettle but (under the influence of recent events) showing distinct signs of reanimation.

The weekend’s RIC assembly brought in more than 500 people from all over Scotland, including a hefty cohort of SNP members and non-aligned, plus Greens, SSP and the assorted left groups. The nation’s intellectual heavyweights were also on hand, including Neal Ascherson, Lesley Riddoch, Isobel Lindsay, and Robin McAlpine. Prominent left politicians contributing included the SNP’s Chris Stephens (aka “the most left-wing MP in the Commons”) and MSP Ross Greer from the Greens.

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The size and breadth of participation at this latest RIC event clearly indicates a definite upswing of activity on the broad indy left.

Above all, the it represented a crystallisation of opposition to the direction (more accurately, non-direction) of the current SNP leadership.

It is no secret that the independence movement – inside and outside the SNP – is frustrated by the lack of firm direction from the SNP leadership team regarding a fresh referendum. This unease grew rapidly in the aftermath of the 2017 General Election, which saw the SNP lose half a million votes and one-third of its seats. Attendance at SNP branch meetings dropped off rapidly, to be replaced by a spontaneous relaunching of autonomous Yes groups across the country.

This activist-led movement quickly spawned the All Under One Banner pro-independence marches, culminating in more than 200,000 people demonstrating in Edinburgh earlier this month – an extraordinary political feat given the drizzle and the non-involvement of the SNP party machine. It was a bit like Cinderella turning up at the ball, complete with self-made carriage and dress, only to find Prince Charming couldn’t be bothered to attend.

Clearly, the SNP leadership has begun to feel itself under pressure from below. Which may explain why, at the party’s conference in April, the First Minister suddenly announced she would introduce legislation in the Scottish Parliament to hold a second independence referendum before May 2021. And that she would seek a Section 30 order from the Conservative government in London to facilitate this new vote.

The problem is, of course, that there’s no hope in Hades of the Tories granting a Section 30 – and everyone knows it. There is a view – put eloquently at the RIC meeting by activist-journalist Michael Gray – that the Scottish Government already has the legal competence to hold referendums and should just go ahead with indyref2. Either we win, which gives Scotland the moral and international grounds to negotiate separation, or we meet Westminster in the courts.

I take Michael’s point, but the FM won’t go down the unilateral road. Which is why party members are frustrated at being manipulated by a leadership only pretending to seek an early referendum, when everyone knows Nicola is preparing the ground to contest the May 2021 Holyrood election. This impasse has led some SNP dissidents – notably Inverclyde councillor Chris McEleny and MP Angus MacNeil – to propose a Plan B, making an SNP majority at the next general election the mandate to negotiate separation (the historic SNP position). However, this idea was shot down by leadership heavyweights at the start of the autumn conference, on the spurious ground that Plan A (the bogus attempt at gaining a Section 30 order) had not been tried.

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The membership acquiesced rather than give the media anti-SNP headlines, but grumbled in private. However, this sotto voce grumbling became positively thunderous at the RIC assembly, where the question of how to seize the independence agenda back from the SNP leadership bunker was the hot topic. This was given extra emphasis because of the rightwards direction of SNP economic policy, a move supposedly geared towards winning moderate and business interests to independence.

Yet again, the party’s Growth Commission report authored by Andrew Wilson came under withering criticism. Even if you discount wilder criticisms that it is a neo-liberal charter, the report is an over-wordy, historically redundant plea for growing GDP just when we need to reject capitalist accumulation, in order to combat climate change. Besides, a pro-market economic strategy does nothing to win back those marginalised indy supporters in the housing schemes, who abandoned the SNP at the 2017 election. Ostensible SNP support for both the Growth Commission report and a Green New Deal is another obvious policy fudge.

But what to do? To date, activists have seen their role as “pressuring” the SNP leadership into becoming more radical – a strategy that has had limited success, even though the British state is deadlocked in its biggest crisis in a century.

Meanwhile, a curious thing has happened. The very inertia and conservatism of the SNP leadership has prompted the flowering of an autonomous, many-stranded and increasingly radical indy movement separate from the party structures.

This contemporary, post-2008 phenomenon – movement over party – is not isolated to Scotland. It already dominates the Catalan independence process. It sparked the “gilets jaunes” (yellow vests) uprising in France last year. We have seen it now in Hong Kong, Chile and Iraq.

The origins of this anti-party phenomenon lie in popular revulsion from media manipulation practised by political and party elites (including the SNP). And from sheer bloody anger that the existing political system has been unable (or refuses) to reverse austerity or climate change. Indeed, speaker after speaker on Saturday raised the question of when the Yes movement will turn to civil disobedience to secure Scottish freedom.

Should the movement go its own way? Should Yes branches create some over-arching structure with an elected leadership, resembling the Catalan National Assembly? Should the existing Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) take over from the political parties, as mooted by Robin McAlpine? (Spoiler: I think the SNP leadership would pull out of SIC rather cede control.) Or should the Yes movement organise in open assemblies which set specific goals for the six months ahead – the model adopted by the US anti-Vietnam War movement in the 1960s.

Ultimately, should the movement set up as a separate party, if only to force the SNP leadership to think again (suggested, tentatively, by Lesley Riddoch on Saturday)?

The latter would be a nuclear option, but the very fact it is being discussed indicates the level of frustration within the Yes movement. The RIC meeting asked the correct questions. Is anyone at SNP HQ listening?