THE vote for independence needs to be won in “the right way,” Brexit secretary Michael Russell is set to tell SNP members today.
Opening the party’s Spring Conference, the Scottish Brexit secretary will urge the thousands of delegates gathered in Edinburgh to back the First Minister’s new plan.
Nicola Sturgeon effectively fired the gun on the campaign for indyref2 on Wednesday when she unveiled proposals to introduce legislation that would, effectively, allow Scotland to hold a second referendum before 2021.
READ MORE: First Minister rejects Tory claims indyref bill needs Whitehall approval
Though the announcement has met with enthusiasm by many in the party ere has been disquiet among others in the Yes movement.
Her former justice secretary Kenny MacAskill (pictured below) said the First Minister’s update to MSPs hadn’t really changed anything.
He said she had proposed nothing more than “another round of discussion and attempts at consensus building”.
In a column for the Scotsman he said independence supporters were “delusional” if they thought Sturgeon wanted a vote before 2021.
“The talk of a poll before 2021 initially sounds positive but it’s heavily caveated and restricted by other factors. Will the UK have resolved its EU position by then? If that has been settled, can a poll even be carried out in time?
“But it allows her to reassure the party this weekend that she’s undaunted and the light undimmed.”
READ MORE: Greens happy with indyref2 announcement but critics go on the attack
Russell is set to disagree with his former cabinet colleague, and will tell delegates that a Yes vote is possible, as long as the SNP “take the right path in the right way – a path and a way set out by the First Minister on Wednesday.”
He is expected to say: “We need to encourage everyone who lives here to play a part in building our new national story.
“We will only do so by working with them and listening to them because in so doing we will all become stronger.”
Russell will compare the plans for a Citizens Assembly to the Constitutional Convention that helped establish the Scottish Parliament.
He will tell delegates that these assemblies can “allow Scotland to engage with its future in a constructive and thoughtful way.”
Around 2500 delegates and more than 500 media and observers are expected at the capital’s conference centre for the two-day conference.
READ MORE: Indyref2: First Minister sets out plans for vote before 2021
Today will almost certainly be dominated by the debate on the SNP’s currency plans.
The party’s leadership faces a challenge from the grassroots over timing of when to introduce a separate Scottish currency.
The motion on the currency asks delegates to back plans to “establish an independent currency” in an independent Scotland, but that the “process and precise timescale for doing so should be subject to robust governance and guided by the six tests recommended by the Sustainable Growth Commission.”
The Campaign for a Scottish Currency, made up of SNP members, has put forward an amendment which would see the six tests scrapped and bring forward a specific timetable on the introduction of a Scottish currency in the first term of parliament of an independent Scotland.
Yesterday, SNP depute leader Keith Brown and Finance Secretary Derek Mackay called on delegates to back the leadership’s plan.
Brown said: “We recognise that to win that case we must convince more people than we reached in 2014. We need a strong, credible, and ambitious argument to take to the doorsteps – and our proposals provide just that.”
Mackay said the SNP needed to “build confidence” in the case for independence.
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