Lesley Riddoch: Today we begin an epic journey into nationhood

EXCITEMENT on Independence Day is at fever pitch. It’s been a tough 18 months of negotiation, planning and town hall meetings to steady nerves. Indeed, last night in his Eve of Indy broadcast, First Minister Alex Salmond told Yessers to celebrate but also to respect the 45 per cent of Scots that didn’t opt for independence.

Still, Edinburgh’s stappit fu’ today – so much so that the Scottish Government’s brought the Clydebuilt QE2 out of dry docks in Dubai, renamed it IndyDay and moored the renovated ship in the Britannia’s old berth at Leith for VIP accommodation. Surely – despite the half-hearted petition for a second referendum led by Lib Dem leader Alistair Carmichael, sceptics must be feeling just a wee bit excited now?

Salmond was the hero who won the referendum against all the odds – but there’s no denying it’s been a turbulent 18 months since the oil price crash squeezed projections for the first independent Scottish Budget. Critics say that’s why it is rumoured he will resign next week, making way for Nicola Sturgeon – the Deputy First Minister and the woman who has led the Scots negotiating team. I agree with the political editor of the new Scottish Broadcasting Corporation, Iain Macwhirter, who maintains Alex always planned to “do a Moses” so that a new leader with less baggage could lead the first Independent Government. Clearly, Nicola is a weel-kent face after her sell-out tour of Scotland after the indyref victory and her subtle reshaping of the SNP’s vision ever since as lead negotiator.

Against all the odds she made the 18-month timetable work amid less talk of cutting corporation tax (none in fact) and more about abolishing the bedroom tax and punitive benefits sanctions as soon as possible. Clearly it would be easier for a new leader to establish Scotland’s new currency – Plan B finally swung into motion once Prime Minister George Osborne point-blank refused to consider the shared currency option.

Deciding against a protracted and confidence-sapping war of words, interim Chancellor John Swinney announced plans for a separate currency with a transitional period of sterlingisation. Backed by leading economists and the new head of the Scottish Central Bank, Professor Anton Muscatelli, the plan seems to have gone down well. The Loch Ness monster hasn’t headed south nor have any of the Scottish banks. Supermarket prices haven’t soared – though visitor numbers have more than doubled.

Andy Burnham narrowly beat Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership after all three Unionist party leaders resigned in the wake of their “complacent” indyref performances and surprised all the pundits by becoming Prime Minister after the 2015 General Election with a small working majority – helped no doubt by George Osborne’s disastrous year at Number 10 after the indyref.

Nicola Sturgeon didn’t push for a renegotiation of the shared currency option. Some say that’s because the move to a new currency is a more stable medium-term option – others suggest it was the price of helping Labour win the 2015 election to create more sympathetic negotiating conditions for Scotland.

WHATEVER the reason, Nicola Sturgeon’s cunning quid pro quo for not getting Scotland’s fair share of the pound has been a stunner. She negotiated new borrowing powers for the Scottish Government and immediate Scottish control over energy and broadcasting.

With interest rates at a record low, Salmond was able to take Scotland in a new, growth oriented, anti-austerity direction almost immediately. Borrowing at almost zero per cent interest, the Scottish Government launched “Scotland’s Energy Deal” on March 24, 2014 – a renewables construction boom backed by money from the City of London and the Norwegian Oil Fund (bit of a contrast with nuclear power and Hinkley C).

Originally the subject of some criticism the SED has been massively successful – a regeneration scheme as momentous in its way as FDR’s Tennessee Valley Authority. First to go was the UK’s unfair pricing regime for connecting remote, renewable energy to the UK grid.

Next, construction work began on a network of new regional mini grids to encourage community energy and district heating. Last month a new framework of Scottish subsidies for community energy, offshore wind, biomass and marine energy kicked in – prompting the establishment of two new Scottish turbine and solar PV panel manufacturing firms and the re-location of several London-based renewables companies.

The most successful community energy scheme, at the reopened Tullis Russell biomass plant near Glenrothes, aims to eliminate fuel poverty in Fife by 2018 and has made world headlines by offering free electricity for five years to new local eco-friendly businesses. The carbon capture project at Peterhead has been restarted as a joint project with Norway – the first achievement of the post-oil joint working group set up by the Nordic Council in which Scotland is set to become a full member. The aim is to share expertise and plan for a medium term shift away from fossil fuel dependency.

A North Sea super-grid is being planned to collect green energy from Northern Europe and supply countries such as Germany where green energy gets consistently high prices. It’s thought this project alone will smooth Scotland’s entry to the EU after final negotiations later this year. The Scottish Greens maintain the super-grid idea was actually the brainchild of interim Environment Minister Patrick Harvie. Voters can decide which national government figures have worked hardest in the first IndyScot elections on May 5.

But Alex Salmond’s surprise decision to involve prominent non-SNP supporters of independence – such as the Green co-convenor, the founder of Common Weal Robin McAlpine and co-founder of Women for Independence Jeane Freeman – in the interim cabinet appears only to have helped the SNP strengthen its lead in the opinion polls.

Meanwhile, negotiations over the future of Trident continue.

Andy Burnham, with his narrow 2015 General Election win producing a small working majority, is set to cancel Trident to appease the left-wing grassroots of his own party while stopping short of announcing a permanent end to the UK’s nuclear deterrent for fear of provoking anxious Tory,

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Campaigners here are pressing the Scottish Government to make radical land reform the first substantial legislation considered by the new independent Scottish Parliament – just as it was the first subject tackled by the first devolved Parliament in 1999.

Leslie Evans – head of the new Scottish civil service – insists her staff can handle this while also setting up tax collection and welfare systems and planning for the new National Childcare Service in which parents will pay no more than £300 monthly for a full-time childcare place

Naturally there’s worry over the number of long-awaited and ambitious progressive policies being implemented simultaneously, but campaigners agreed to hang fire during 18 months of negotiations with Westminster so change in the domestic realm cannot be ignored for much longer.

MEANWHILE, as the Constitutional Commission established by Andy Burnham to discuss English devolution and a new federal rUK prepares to meet, the Welsh Government’s proposed referendum on tax-raising powers will be discussed at the hastily reconvened Council of the Isles which meets in Belfast tomorrow.

But back to today. March 24 will forever more be a public holiday in Scotland and, hopefully, a day to remember with no “Bring it Oannnnnn” style amateurishness – or at least only a bit. The Independence Day parade – designed by Danny Boyle – will apparently include reproductions of every object ever invented by Scots.

There’s much speculation that a massive 3D image of the Declaration of Arbroath will be the centrepiece but there will certainly be a march past by descendants of foreign soldiers saved by the Scottish Women’s Hospitals founded by Elsie Inglis in 1914 and a big screen witnessing the arrival of New Scotia at Waverley Station, the train powered by a reproduction of

James Watt’s earliest steam engine.

Thousands of Scottish ex-pats will be on board, arriving for the Hands across Scotland event first suggested by interim Foreign Secretary Humza Yousaf. He aims to replicate the astonishing human chain created in Catalonia three years ago, with folk from all nations creating human chains over hills, glens, straths, riversides and pavements to link Oban with Aberdeen and John O’Groats with Berwick.

At 12 noon Alex Salmond will formally announce Scotland’s independence, speaking from a stage atop Salisbury Crags to massive crowds in Holyrood Park below and TV audiences across the world.

Then, Scots are off on a journey like no other. An epic journey into nationhood. An adventure of our own making – once again.