Some things haven’t changed in our push for a better nation

We were called presidents in those days, a time when we were fewer in numbers and loosely attached to a small, but growing party. It was just when devolution was becoming mainstream news, but national independence was a distant dream.

Julia, today’s FSN convener, and I are both members of the Commission for Social Justice and Fairness proposed by Nicola Sturgeon and voted for by the SNP conference in 2019. Through the years each cohort of students has had debates centred around twin aims. I mean the SNP’s twin aims, the achievement of national independence and, crucially, the furtherance of all Scottish interests, as the membership card still says.

I mention this because I’m sure that concerns then are little different to those now. For starters, in my student days, a conference entitled What Kind of Scotland? was organised by radical groups in Edinburgh and took place in the early spring of 1973. It hosted the first performance of John McGrath’s epic ceilidh play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil.

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The Cheviot resonates down the decades. We are still trying to gain control and use of our land. Since the 1970s, as predicted, a huge drain of the material benefits from oil extraction eluded the many and instead enriched the few. Thankfully, we are today grappling with the transition to a fairer, greener Scotland.

Back then students wised up on The Politics of Environment by Malcolm Slesser. We were as impatient as every generation is with our elders. We joined debates in the SNP and in colleges and universities. I was active in Dundee Uni to oppose the merger of the Scottish Union of Students into Region 10 of the NUS, as it became.

Also, we met in summer schools begun by the late 1960s FSN and campaigned in the 1970s for crofters’ rights and Gaelic culture in the FSN Skye Crofting Scheme. Each new intake of students had their priorities. Today equal rights are high on the agenda, but the interests of repopulating our country and creating sustainable communities are still as pressing as in pre-devolution days. We have begun to turn round Scottish life and boost self-confidence with help from our hard-fought-for Scottish Parliament that had been voted for overwhelmingly in the 1997 referendum by the parents and grandparents of this generation of students.

It has taken my generation decades of political commitment before being part of today’s critical stage in our national journey. I first stood for Westminster when I was 27. I was elected a district councillor when I was 43. I was elected to Holyrood when I was 56 years old. Today many elected councillors and parliamentarians have not had the experience of such decades of struggle and setbacks.

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I have a photo from back in 1972, wearing my FSN t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan – Free Scotland Now. Each year big debates have galvanised the strength and direction of the party, such as over NATO membership in 2012. The vote was for staying in, though I and many disagreed. The vast bulk of us did not walk out. We accepted the discipline of democratic decisions. That made us stronger. You do not always have to agree with every party policy passed.

Circumstances always unfold and perspectives change. My gut feeling is that most residents of our country want social justice and fairness, i.e. security for their families, an affordable roof over their heads, a fully funded, national health service, sustainable work and a clean environment.

The SNP’s opportunity in the run up to next May’s election is to present voters with a programme for independence that embodies and enhances these issues. What kind of Scotland? is still the biggest question, and Free Scotland Now is our collective means for all Scots voters to decide it for ourselves. It has never been clearer.

Rob Gibson

via email