ON the route to independence, most discourse fumbles the pivotal issue. With London opposed to Scottish independence and committed in word and deed not to help bring it about, no route to independence – none – can work if it relies on London’s cooperation. That is the simple, plain, true, logical and incontrovertible message which must get through to anyone seriously proposing a route.
Unless a way is adopted which does not depend on London’s cooperation, independence is never going to happen. There is nothing else that will get us there – no amount of discussion about the benefits of independence, campaigning for it or working for it in any way. If Scotland cannot take independence at its own hand, we will never achieve it.
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This is not to reject cooperation from London, but it will only ever be given once it is perfectly clear that Scotland will go independent anyway, and when London regards Scottish independence as absolutely inevitable whether they like it or not. That is the place Scotland must get itself into, by means of a formal, democratic vote (in a General Election under a true plebiscitary manifesto) for Scotland to leave the UK and become an independent country, with the resolve to take the step of leaving the UK (in the party winning those votes), and the power to take that step (held by the Scottish members of the UK Parliament).
The SNP’s official position fails the test. The leader’s resolution which it adopted in October last year is in florid terms, but crucially it involves fatal dependence on London, because it envisages achieving independence only by “negotiations” with London, and “transfer of legal power” by London, after receiving from voters a “mandate to negotiate independence” through a first-past-the-post majority of Scottish seats. It is silent on what happens when London won’t negotiate (as it won’t) and won’t transfer power (as it won’t), except that “consideration should be given” to a de facto referendum at Holyrood in 2026, which it likewise hobbles with a negotiation mandate. It might as well be a brick wall to independence. The party doesn’t see this, but many independence-minded voters do.
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As long as that remains the SNP’s policy, the General Election will be a train-crash. Independence parties will stay divided, the SNP’s vote will plummet, Unionists will weaponise the SNP’s false independence platform by blaring that the party’s shameful result shows Scotland unequivocally prefers to stay in the UK, and there may not even be an indy majority of Scottish MPs at all (depriving Scotland of the mechanism for taking the actual step of leaving the Union).
And that is why, for the sake of independence (and even to save their own skin), the SNP must alter course. By doing so, they can achieve not only the votes of that third who will support the party anyway in spite of its many faults, but also the remainder of that half who will vote for independence proper, plus votes gathered from a decent campaign. I echo those correspondents who point out that the only manifesto to do the job is one which, in whatever terms, proclaims: a majority of votes for us, and Scotland WILL go independent!
Brian Boyce
Motherwell
CURRENTLY the SNP and Alba do not sit in the House of Lords, and this should not change. In fact, we should have done the following as soon as Westminster and the Supreme Court said there is no democratic way for Scotland to either just leave the UK or to even hold a referendum, no matter how many times we elect independence governments: withdraw our MPs from Westminster and not take part in any debates or votes.
So, no U-turn on going to the House of Lords, and withdraw from the Commons!
Rab Doig
Bo’ness
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