THE leader of the Scottish Socialist Party has said his party will not participate in a new Yes Scotland organisation if it puts the economic recommendations of Andrew Wilson’s Sustainable Growth Commission at its centre.
Colin Fox said the SSP would instead make its own separate case for independence in the event of a second referendum being called.
The former MSP was a board member of Yes Scotland, the cross and non party organisation which campaigned for a Yes vote in 2014. He said the economic outlook presented in the SNP’s growth report was “straight out of [former Labour prime minister] Tony Blair’s playbook” and risked driving Yes supporters into the “hands of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn”.
“The key to victory in a second independence referendum is winning over working class No voters unconvinced by the 2014 Yes case and whose votes are essential to win,” he said writing in The National. “However I feel duty bound as a member of the wider independence movement to say Andrew Wilson’s voluminous Sustainable Growth Report offers nothing to working class Scots under austerity’s cosh these ten years past. Rather it offers them another ten years of the same! The Scottish Socialist Party will not participate in a Yes campaign that puts this report at its centre. It risks driving hundreds of thousands of former Yes voters into the hands of Jeremy Corbyn. “
Nicola Sturgeon unveiled the SNP’s growth commission in September 2016 in a move to update and strengthen the economic case for independence. She has described the report as a “set of recommendations” rather than policy and her party has organised a series of national assemblies over the summer to discuss its findings.
It will invite representatives from the Yes movement who are not in the SNP to the meetings.
Fox said he would take part in the meetings to make his points. Discussing the timing of a second referendum, he said a new vote should only be held when there was a strong chance of winning.
“We can only have a referendum when there is a chance of winning. Not if we are going to lose,” he said. “The polls and all the evidence have us behind. The argument on the economy has not yet been won and I believe Andrew Wilson’s paper does us no favours on that front.”
Wilson’s report has sparked considerable debate since it was published on Friday. Historian Professor Sir Tom Devine said it would have won the argument in 2014 but Fox is the latest critic on the left to attack its contents.
An SNP spokesman said: “The SNP will consider the growth commission report over the summer. We’ll hear views from across civic Scotland, community groups, businesses and trade unions. We’re holding three major (national assembly) events to engage with the wider Yes movement, all before the party takes a formal view on the report’s recommendations. There’s no question however Scotland is well placed to join our small European neighbours as amongst the fairest and wealthiest, countries in the world.”
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