Hugh MacDonald: What I've learned fighting for independence since the 1960s

It seems so near, particularly to those of us who once celebrated when a candidate’s deposit was not lost in the days when progress for the SNP could ­never be measured in the number of seats won.

Today there will be a virtual national assembly on The Route to Independence held by the Scottish ­National Party. It will seek to investigate plan a, plan b or whatever letter of the alphabet denotes a viable route to self-determination. The immediacy of these discussions, the urgency of drawing up a road map to home rule seems a fair distance from the closes in Ruchill.

There is an irony in my personal experience of those treks in the 1960s. It was about self-rule but it was done under parental duress. The task was to deliver leaflets for a father who was standing for the SNP in Glasgow Corporation elections. The allure of such an example of democracy in action was lost on a primary schoolboy.

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It did, however, provide lessons that remain ­poignant as Scotland moves towards the end game in a political struggle. A glance at the internet shows 18 (and counting) successive polls in favour of ­independence. In the early 1960s, there would be fewer than 18 members of the party in many ­constituencies.

The personal and the political collide for me as ­destiny offers a beckoning finger. My days as an SNP activist ended with my ascension to the heady ­uplands of junior reportership. Yet almost 50 years on from walking away from walking up stairs, there is much that holds a valuable truth in the experience of the early days of what has become the long-term ruling party in Scotland.

My father was by instinct and self-education a ­nationalist or, more accurately, a campaigner for self-determination. He held no truck with exclusion or bias, the baleful symptoms of a poisoned nationalism. He believed in a Scotland for all when sometimes this faith could be measure in hundreds at the ballot box.

It may be instructive to reflect on that era, before projecting on the future. The cliché protests that if you can remember the 60s then you were not there. I was there. And, yes, the details are hazy. I recall the immediate MacDonald clan (five weans, maw and pa) being joined by a handful of helpers as Hugh MacDonald senior mounted another tilt at the city on the hill, known locally as Ruchill.

I remember the bile directed at weans carrying leaflets by Labour activists. I remember, even then, a sense of futility about it all. These were the days of the long march. The destination seemed not just over any horizon but most probably unattainable.

I remember one campaign, in particular. It shows the electoral strength, or lack of it, wielded by the SNP. My father was working for Beaverbrook newspapers as an advertising representative after ­dragging himself from the glamour of his previous post as an electrician at Dalmarnock sewage works. He ­informed his manager that he was standing for Ruchill for the SNP in the council elections. His boss warned him that winning would see an immediate end to his career. Pater chuckled and said there was no chance of him being elected.

On the morning after the count, I read the late editions of the papers before I went to school. I saw my dad had been beaten by about 40 ­voters (48 springs to mind but why spoil a story by checking) and I advanced again ­upstairs, this time in the family home in Busby, to commiserate. I woke my dad with a cup of tea and was in the midst of summoning something inspirational to galvanise him for his next electoral ­battle when he waved me away with a jovial roar and a grin. “That was a close call,” he said. “I thought I was heading for the sack.” His election agent – and his Labour opponent – were somewhat ­surprised at dad’s unbending refusal to call for a recount.

So this is where the independence movement once stood: a small cadre of dedicated activists with no expectations of immediate success and a whiff of hope about a future far, far away.

Winnie Ewing in Hamilton in 1967 and Margo MacDonald in Govan in 1973 gave substance to that hope with by-election victories in Hamilton and ­Govan ­respectively. But both ultimately lost their seats. Remember, the SNP waxed and waned before achieving domination in Scotland. This has been no straight, rising trajectory.

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But Winnie and Margo symbolised something profound. It was this: the SNP was and is a party of various political beliefs operating in a polarised political world. It would be trite but broadly accurate to depict Winnie as on the right and Margo most definitely as on the left.

My father worked tirelessly for both women. The election planning meetings (cunningly disguised as Glenmorangie-fuelled ceilidhs) were attended by a core cast that included anarchists, socialists, libertarians, right-wingers and assorted political mavericks.

They all brought something to the ­party. And not just a carry-out. There were writers, advertising executives, ­political organisers, shop stewards, ­singers, comedians, teachers, plumbers and those with previous political convictions that included membership of Communist Party and affiliation with the Conservative Party.

Their purpose was single-minded. It can be summarised as “let’s get independence and argue afterwards”. This was a truce that was a fragile as the ice on a Ruchill puddle. It broke regularly but it closed over quickly.

THE SNP’s history is marked by dissension. This is forgotten in the rhetoric about “cults” and “one-party states”. There has always been tension. It is a political party and politicians want to argue about politics. It also now forms a government and that brings both responsibilities and a justifiable demand for accountability.

My view from the sidelines of the movement has been educational. There is no surprise at the box office bouts of ­Cherry v Robertson. That is politics. There is ­anger at the gaffes. The awful mess over pupils’ examinations incensed me, standing for everything I never want to see in an independent Scotland or any ­Scotland. But that is politics. There are, too, obvious, worrying questions in the Alex Salmond affair.

But there is something beyond ­politics and it has fuelled the movement to ­independence. There is a truth that lies above the rhetoric, the claims and the ­in-fighting.

A party that has been in charge during the vicissitudes of a global pandemic, has been involved in the care home tragedy, has messed up badly in the exams fiasco, has watched its one-time leader being prosecuted (and cleared) on sex offences, has endured in-fighting, however inflated by its enemies and underplayed by its friends, still sits with the sort of electoral lead that is not only unassailable but unanswerable.

It has been helped by an extraordinary blindness on the part of its opponents. They claim no one wants a referendum. Yet the SNP is heading for an absolute majority in the May elections and no one can surely argue that its aim is disguised. The clue is in the party’s title.

Similarly, opponents shout “once in a generation” when 18 consecutive ­opinion polls and a long line of elections state clearly there is an appetite to leave or, at the very least, to have a vote on the proposition. They also scream about the aims of the SNP being “divisive”. Elections, by their very nature, always are. But all this is sound and fury with little effect on the rising support for independence.

The truth of the polls, whether opinion or officially electoral, is that Scotland may be one final push from independence. But how to effect that revolutionary change? That question speaks to the very soul of any political movement. There is the “ca’ canny” faction who know that any shot at home rule must be sure. The prospect of failure is chilling. This would surely breathe life into that tired “once in a generation” argument, taking home rule off the immediate agenda.

There is, of course, the faction that seeks to move swiftly. They believe, with persuasive evidence, that there has never been a better time to detach Scotland from a Westminster that does not represent the values or beliefs of Scots. They are encouraged by the growing chorus of neutral commentators who see the break-up of the Union as inevitable.

There is a palpable sense of history ­being made at the national assembly ­today. But history has been in the process of being made for more than half a century in the party. Today is a crucial moment but it lies in the wake of other influential times when lessons were learned and tactics forged.

The SNP has been extraordinarily ­resilient. The argument was once varied. The Ruchill of the early 1960s held the whisper of “who cares?” or even “it will never happen”. It was an urban ­landscape where independence was regarded as a fantasy.

Indifference ruled and it seemed to be eternal. The towns and cities would largely vote Labour, the middle-class and the rural areas would go Tory, the ­Liberals would win in the Borders and Orkney and Shetland. The SNP would flare up, die down and ultimately disappear. This happened. Until it didn’t. The sustained electoral dominance of the SNP is unprecedented. It shows no sign of abating. The May elections offer the promise of overwhelming backing for Nicola ­Sturgeon and her party in the face of the worst health crisis of modern times, the putative civil war and the rows over ­education.

Yet most issues have been placed to one side by voters and commentators in the all-consuming debate over independence. This is not a party policy but reflects the national discourse. This is an issue that dominates the landscape in Scotland ­almost to the exclusion of all others. Polls show that it seems to be tilting, perhaps inexorably, towards a bold nod to real home rule.

There has been a feckless, unimaginative pushback. The years since the SNP first caused an electoral ripple have ­witnessed the sop of devolution, the ­appeasement of the Vow, the weary ­reiteration of federalism. But the self-determination movement has pushed through all of this – all of the rows, the personality clashes, the political discourses, the inevitable failures – to remain at the very top of the hill. Or, at least, very close to it.

THERE is one last push to come. It will be fractious, difficult, messy and divisive. It will involve persuading a Conservative and Unionist prime minister to risk the Union. It may embrace legal machinations. There will be questions over the timing today. There will even be questions over the question as the day of destiny draws closer.

But it will come because people continue to vote for the SNP in huge numbers. There is an inevitability about this cause and effect that seems to have escaped those who have concentrated their fire on Sturgeon, or currency, or divisiveness, or scandals perceived or real.

The momentum seems irresistible. It rises daily and is now visible to all but the most partisan. There will be a ­ mandate for independence in the ­elections of 2021.

The SNP that once rejoiced at the election of a single MP can now envisage a sweep of the electoral map that could never have been envisaged by those who sought to save a deposit and thus live to fight again.

It is a remarkable phenomenon. And one that no one could see in the early 1960s, not even from the top of a close in Ruchill.