SNP's convention was a dead end, not a new beginning

This was sometime in the early 1990s when the world was young, and everything seemed possible. Although I did not clock it at the time, a wet-behind-the-ears Boris Johnson was working for The Daily Telegraph just down the corridor, inventing absurd lies about the EU banning prawn cocktails.

I was in Brussels with my old friend and companion-in-mischief Richard Saville, employed by the Coalfield Communities Campaign and the National Union of Mineworkers to try to save from oblivion what remained of the post-Thatcher Scottish mining industry.

We were working out of the friendly offices of Labour MEP (and joyous political maverick) Alex Falconer – aided and abetted by Alex’s then assistant, a certain Richard Leonard.

Never a sectarian, Winnie, God bless her heart, was helping us navigate our way through the EU bureaucracy.

As we sat with her in the midst of the bustling European Parliament, I was struck by how many MEPs and Commission civil servants – from all countries and parties – stopped to chat with her or discuss some matter of business. She truly was her famous sobriquet: “Madame Ecosse” – recognised, respected, and influential in a manner in which the Tory and British Labour MEPs were not.

In fact, in those distant days, the Labour members were largely holed up in the old Metropole Hotel (the former Gestapo HQ) drinking too much. Winnie, never small-minded, did their job for them. Through Winnie, Scotland had regained its rightful place in the world.

Now, sadly, she has left the building. Like other giants of the independence movement I’ve had the privilege to know and work with over the decades – Margo, Gordon Wilson, Stephen Maxwell, Hamish Henderson, Thurso Berwick, Ian Hamilton – Winnie will not be around for Independence Day.

But she and they will be there in spirit, for that day will surely come. The only serious issue is how to achieve it.

Let me say that I did not always share Winnie Ewing’s political positions – we were on the opposite sides of the left-right spectrum in many ways. I can say the same regarding her son and political heir Fergus.

On the other hand, the reason I feel an affinity with Winnie – and Fergus – is that they were and are of a Jacobin spirit when it comes to winning Scottish self-determination, Jacobin as in being radical democrats who reject the established order.

Fergus has gotten into trouble in the Scottish Parliament for daring to break ranks and speak the truth about some of the incompetent decisions taken by the SNP government.

Winnie came of that political generation which made illegal, pro-indy radio broadcasts (Gordon Wilson), kidnapped the Stone of Destiny (Ian Hamilton), defended the right to use violence when oppressed by a foreign power (Hamish Henderson) and which opposed meekly swapping London rule uncritically for Brussels tutelage (Stephen Maxwell).

Alas, the passing of this generation of hard-headed, Jacobin nationalists means that leadership of the movement is increasingly in the hands of those who believe independence can only be achieved by some linear, gradualist process of gentle intellectual persuasion.

It was this gradualist approach that won out at the SNP’s special “convention” in Dundee at the weekend. As I understand it – there was a strange element of ambiguity in Humza Yousaf’s peroration to the SNP membership – the plan is to await the party winning a majority of seats at a UK General Election and then …

Well, actually, I don’t understand what happens then. I presume the SNP leadership expects that in such an event, Westminster will suddenly agree to another independence referendum. Perhaps even to open independence negotiations.

But just to put these notions into cold print is to expose their political vacuity and naivety. For starters, the latest polls predict Scottish Labour will win more seats than the SNP next year.

Secondly even if the SNP win a majority of seats, Westminster will point out that independence does not command a majority of voters. Thirdly, to command such a majority would require tallying the combined votes of all the pro-indy parties. But the SNP still rejects vociferously any such cross-party alliance.

Even in its own terms, the new SNP strategy is incoherent. Above all, the SNP independence strategy relies on a Westminster government responding positively to a pro-indy vote in Scotland (however defined). But that is not going to happen.

Once bitten in 2014, Westminster is now twice shy about opening the possibility of Scottish “legal” succession. The present uber-liberal leadership of the SNP – trapped in its own parliamentary experience – cannot grasp that Westminster

(Tory, Labour, LibDem) is never going to give up Scotland except if forced to do so.

Not when Labour need Scottish votes to control Westminster. Not after the Russo-Ukraine conflict when the British establishment fears any diminution of its military and diplomatic influence. Not when Tory English nationalists see a loss of “Scotlandshire” as dimishing prestige.

Not when the UK Treasury and the City think a loss of Scottish foreign currency earnings will permanently drive up interest rates (necessary to stop the pound sterling sinking).

The elephant in the room is that the English establishment won’t accept Scottish succession any more than it accepted Irish independence. That’s not a call to violence – no-one is talking about the absurdity of bombing our way out of the UK.

But it is an assertion of the need for some robust – Jacobin – response to Westminster intransigence regarding Scotland’s right to self-determination. Such a Jacobin response involves making Westminster rule slowly unworkable north of the Border.

It means that an elected Scottish government representing a sovereign Scottish people actually refusing to accept the dictates of the Westminster and Whitehall establishment.

I actually agree with those who argue that the indy movement can’t simply march forever. We are likely, in that event, to march ourselves into boredom or oblivion.

But demonstrating in support of a radical Scottish Government that is defying the UK Treasury over welfare spending or immigration rights is a different matter.

Marching also shows our collective strength. The only way to secure a larger majority for independence is not through intellectual appeals to economic logic – it is by demonstrating to the waverers in our midst that we have the collective strength and determination to seize independence and make it work.

Unfortunately, the contemporary SNP are trapped in a bind of their own making. Their attachment to electoralism makes them nervous about working with other parts of the indy movement such as All Under One Banner or Alba. At the same time, the SNP’s attachment to legalism makes it subservient to Westminster in the long run.

As a result, Saturday’s Dundee convention marks a dead end, not a new beginning.

What is to be done? Winnie remarked: “Time after time, on matters great and small, we are still standing on the sidelines, mutely accepting what is decided elsewhere instead of raising our voices and making our own choices”.

It is time we started raising our voices and making our own choices.