I WRITE in response to Alan Hinnrichs’s letter “We’ve heard political fairytales but this is up there with the very best” (September 3).

I have little complaint about his observations up until his last line: “Unfortunately, there is no mechanism to make this a reality, as it has been sacrificed by the grifters in the SNP.”

On so many levels, this is nonsense. First, there are still a number of viable routes to independence. Domestically it can be achieved through invoking the Claim of Right, which remains a part of UK and Scots constitutional law, and was reasserted by the SNP in a Westminster debate in 2018. There is also the international route, using the blunt tool of the UDI, or more likely by engagement with the international community to produce talks similar to the Good Friday Agreement or support and advocacy to bring a case to the international courts.

Whatever the route, the very last step to becoming an independent country is getting the international community to recognise that status. Even following the most amicable domestic path to dissolving the Treaty of Union would still need the international community to step up and recognise and ratify Scotland as an independent state in the UN. Really just a formality in those circumstances, but if the situation was less amicable, achieving international recognition would depend on the Scots demonstrating credible evidence of majority support for independence.

Demonstrating majority support is also how we might invoke the Claim of Right and access international law principles like a people’s right to self-determination. In simplest terms, majority support is the key to independence. The SNP know that.

I believe Alan has confused the SNP’s attempts to find a way to demonstrate majority support for independence with achieving independence. In 2016, the SNP first tried to access a previously used mechanism for testing the will of the Scots, the Section 30, and having that blocked by the UK Government (using the power of the democratic surplus enjoyed by England in Westminster), the SNP then tried to create a mechanism that bypassed Westminster – the Holyrood-run independence referendum.

Surely not wanting to follow the Catalan route – where a campaign of boycotting rendered the referendum result inconclusive, and created major legal problems for those who organised the vote – the SNP put the matter of Holyrood’s competency to the UK Supreme Court. The court ruled that Holyrood, as an extension of the UK’s structures of government, did not have the power to hold a referendum on independence, but it ALSO observed that if a majority of Scots chose independence there is little the UK Government could do to prevent it. In this respect, I believe the UK Supreme Court was acknowledging the domestic law Claim of Right and probably international law principles.

Yes, between 2014 and now the SNP have failed to overcome the various obstacles put in place by the British State, but this is probably “bread and butter” activity for almost every independence movement there has ever been. ALL independence movements fail, repeatedly, right up until the single day they succeed.

So what’s left? Well, the UK Government can’t stop the independence movement from expressing its desire for independence through the UK’s electoral processes. This remains a very viable route to independence, which I believe is why the British state and its compliant media have ramped up their anti-SNP, anti-indy campaign. Support for indy polling at 58% emerging from Covid under Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership must have been a real wake-up call for the British State! All hands to the pumps!

Other routes? I believe Salvo are trying to get the Treaty of Union rescinded as some kind of unlawful contract. But even if they manage that, the “majority” of Scots might vote to keep it in place, choosing to be democracy-light, second-class citizens of the UK union, and agreeing to have a big portion of their country’s economic wealth and natural resources controlled and exploited by the big country next door. They already did that in 2014.

I believe Alba want to try to outflank the UK Government by using the referendum legislation the SNP created (Referendums Scotland Act 2020 – the intended framework for running an independence referendum) to hold a vote on whether or not the Scots want Holyrood to have sovereign rights. This ‘“sovereignty”, they believe, would then bypass the UK Supreme Court ruling and the Scotland Act, endowing Holyrood with the powers to hold an independence referendum. I’ve a feeling that the UK Supreme Court would make the catch-22 ruling that Holyrood does not have the power to hold a referendum on sovereignty, as this power sits with Westminster, but maybe not?

The good news is that international law has a different approach to sovereignty and recognises the principle of popular sovereignty – one brought into being by a demonstration of majority support. And here we are back at the job of finding a way to create credible evidence of majority support for independence. For all those moaning about the SNP not getting us our independence, at no time since 2014 have the people of Scotland created a credible record of majority support for independence. At no time since 2014 have the people of Scotland given the SNP, or any active part of the independence movement, the tools needed to promote and fulfil a claim for independence.

One of the successes of the current anti-independence campaign is getting the indy movement to blame itself (SNP, Greens, Alba, etc) for the success of the Unionist campaign. But we undermine this success by refusing to share their negative and self-destructive narratives. Instead, we create our own narratives! We also accept that if indy is to achieve majority, it needs to be an inclusive and very broad-church organisation. The only credibility or qualifying condition we need from anyone to be in the indy camp is their belief in independence. Only indy if they believe what I believe is a divisive narrative that makes the job of achieving majority even harder. Why make it harder?

From my perspective, we are kicking at the door of independence, and those inside are throwing everything they can find against the door to prevent it getting pushed open. If enough of us push, it will open.
Alistair Potter
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