ARE you ready for the future tense? That was the question the minister of St Giles’ Cathedral asked the congregation the Sunday after the General Election.

The public displays of anger, blame and hurt in the independence movement must be replaced by answering this question. Only by making the future real in our hearts and minds will independence be achieved.

We are in a good place! The movement is awash with individuals and groups filling social media with proposals, hopes and initiatives to move the dial. We are light years ahead of 2014 as we know that half the electorate favours independence. The door is half open. We just need the resolve to push it.

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The election taught us that if a party does not give the electorate a reason to vote for it then it will be treated as an irrelevance. The SNP’s relevance is independence.

Until Brexit and the advent of Muscular Unionism, the SNP policy of delivering good government within the spirit of the devolution settlement provided great electoral success. That time is over. Delivering Independence is now incompatible with managing devolution. Realise it, or Labour will defeat us.

I’m losing count of the national conventions proposed. Is it three? It really is good to talk, but conventions have no powers of delivery. Only political power will deliver Independence, and only the SNP can do that – if they have the will and support to do so.

If you want Scotland to be Independent in the next five years then you had better join the SNP and make your vote count at its forthcoming National Conference.

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You can help steer the SNP ship off the rocks and back on the high seas to Independence. It’s bruised and battered but it’s not sunk and it vitally needs an awakening of grassroots members to share the helm with politicians at national and local level.

The SNP must sort their internal governance quickly. Separately, SNP politicians have a very superficial knowledge of the powers which the Scottish Parliament has. Constantly pleading for more funding from Westminster feeds the “too poor” cringe when existing powers give the Scottish Government the means to control the Scottish economy without any block grant. He or she who controls the economy controls the debate.

The SNP must be a truly national party and not one which indulges in social policies, however well intentioned, which provide opportunities for the disrupters of Independence to spout bile and poison.

These issues should be passed to a citizens’ assembly to establish the settled will of our population through periodic referendums. To achieve the widest support for independence the SNP values need only be a respect for the rule of Scots law and delivering independence.

There is little time for the SNP to restore the electorate’s trust lost through the lens of a hostile media. The SNP and Scottish Government must do something truly dramatic to regain that trust to unleash momentum for independence.

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The Government must put money in people’s pockets using existing powers and Scotland’s resources under its control. The early days of the Labour Government are opening up a chasm of austerity for us to fill. What an opportunity!

The second is to challenge the Chief Constable and Crown Office over the ridiculous cost and length of the sinister Operation Branchform. The SNP position of “letting justice take its course” is allowing Unionist to damage the SNP and the independence cause as well as the reputation of individuals. That must change.

Our party and Government must take the exceptional and unheard of step of raising a civil action against Police Scotland and the Crown Office for failing to protect the integrity of our criminal justice system. That will bring matters to a head. We should not fear the outcome.

The SNP’s failure to demonstrate mechanisms to deliver Independence without UK government consent has lost us substantial support. That will be reversed by harnessing those dedicated to our cause with exceptional talents who continue to do the spade work to deliver independence.

They think independence and are not blown off course by the burden of running a Scottish Government whose service delivery is controlled and administered by some elements of the British civil service whose ultimate duty is to the state which we wish to dissolve.

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There is only one effective pro-active way to make the march to independence complete and quick. The SNP leader must appoint an independence delivery unit comprising these exceptional talents in currency, taxation, security, presentation, et cetera all free from the involvement of the civil service but charged with delivering independence by the 2026 Holyrood election.

They may not all share the same vision for an independent Scotland but they can agree to chart a means to get us over the line. Their advice will not just inform the leader but dictate to us all what we must do to deliver Independence in 2026.

If the SNP were to lose in 2026 then I’d prefer to have gone down fighting to deliver Independence than have floundered on the “safe” approach.

In the spirit of the agreement which I struck with John Swinney before he was granted an unopposed path to the leadership of our party, my local SNP branch submitted a draft resolution for our conference. It was intentionally inclusive. Alarmingly it failed to appear on the draft agenda. We have received no feedback from anyone who decides the agenda.

Conference will determine if the SNP are ready for the future tense or past their sell-by date.

Graeme McCormick
Arden, by Loch Lomond