THE newly appointed chief of the SNP’s independence task force Michael Russell has slammed “constitutionally sclerotic Tories” and answered questions on indyref2.
Clashing over the need for a Yes vote, guests on the Herald’s Brian Taylor podcast also set out when they thought indyref2 would take place.
SNP president Michael Russell, former Conservative MP and Reform UK Scottish party leader Michelle Ballantyne, founder and director of the Scottish Centre on European Relations Kirsty Hughes and former Scottish Conservative Party politician Peter Duncan were appearing.
Taylor asked the panel if a further independence referendum was “justified” noting that in 2014 Scottish people were told “the way to stay in the European Union was to stay in the Union of the UK”.
Duncan said: “I think that if the Scottish people express a view that they would like another referendum then I think it’s obviously what’s going to happen.
“The longer it is delayed and the longer it’s avoided the more difficult it is for the Unionist cause, for which I support, to win that argument”.
He also called it “counter-productive” to further postpone the potential referendum.
This was met with gratification from Russell who said: “I do like to hear the fact that he believes if the Scottish people vote for a referendum there should be, because that strikes me as a very simple democratic point.”
However, posed with the same question Ballantyne said: “No, I don’t think that in itself justifies it.”
Taylor probed if she held the same view as Michael Gove in that he didn’t see a mandate for the vote. “I don’t see it,” she said, adding that she thinks the UK Government will bring forward a General Election that “people are already gearing up for”.
Ballantyne added: “I don’t think there will be the space in the democratic agenda, if you like, for a Scottish independence referendum.”
A take-aback Russell described her stance as “amazing”, and called the decision Scotland’s to make.
He said the country would “move carefully, because of the pandemic, and systematically towards that referendum.”
Taylor put forward the common Unionist position that the 2014 referendum was a “once-in-a-generation” event, with Taylor asking why this view had changed to allow for a second vote less than a decade later.
Russell replied: “Circumstances changed and changed drastically.
“What Brexit has done has created a new set of circumstances. You have the constitutionally sclerotic Tories who just don’t want any constitutional change.”
Ballantyne asked Russell if he “genuinely believed” a Scottish independence referendum would be “without problems” as he was still angry about the Brexit referendum and had found it very divisive.
Russell said: “Yes, because I believe we should go to a second referendum on independence very mindful of the damaging outcomes of the Brexit referendum, determined to try and have as unified a campaign as possible, acknowledging the difficulties that exist.
“In the aftermath of [the Brexit] referendum if Theresa May had taken into 10 Downing Street the leader of the Labour Party, the leader of the liberals, Nicola [Sturgeon], Carwyn [Jones] and the Northern Ireland leadership and said, ‘look, we’ve all got to get something out of this, you may not like it but we’ve got to get something out of this,’ that could have changed things.
“Instead we had the hardest, most ideological, right-wing approach that has damaged everybody, paid no attention to the views of others and still doesn’t.”
Taylor wrapped the session by asking the panel when they thought the independence referendum would take place. Duncan said simply: “In this decade.”
Ballantyne shared: “I think if the general election comes before it and Brexit settles down it might never happen. If it does happen it will have to happen fairly soon.”
Hughes said: “I would say 2024 and back in EU by 2030 if it’s a yes” which Ballantyne can be heard laughing over.
Russell reasoned: “I’ll go with what the first minister has said, in the first half of this parliament and I think that is correct.”
Former Scottish constitution secretary Russell was confirmed as political director of the SNP's independence unit last week.
The task force was unveiled in January, with depute leader Keith Brown saying it would create policy papers and campaign materials to "fire up" the Yes movement.
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