WITH Johnson installed as Prime Minister, we are stuck with someone chosen by a small group of predominately old, white men living mainly in the home counties.

In business there is an old adage that first-rate bosses hire first-class people, second-rate executives hire third-class staff, and third-rate managers hire fourth-class employees.

So, Johnson has reached out to a bunch of political nonentities, right-wing loonies and failures. On this basis, most of the Cabinet would be lucky to travel steerage. His new Scottish Secretary has already made clear his sneering contempt for Scotland’s aspiration to be a normal democratic country.

Ah, I hear you cry, Scotland has a way out of the shambles. We can leave. This call for secession will no doubt grow louder in the weeks ahead. And it is more than likely this appeal will be met initially by a dogmatic refusal to give way by the UK Government.

However, a General Election may take place in the near future, and who can tell what the outcome might be, given the new political reality of a possible four-way tie for supremacy? Let’s imagine for a moment that in the subsequent horse-trading, a way was found to agree Scotland’s case for a new independence referendum.

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Imagine, too, this referendum is won, and independence is declared by the Scottish Government. Thus, we will all be living in a new Scottish state.

What will it look like? How do we know it will not replicate the failed UK system or degenerate to that condition under pressure? Surely not, I hear you declare. My question is simply this: how do you know?

The answer, in part, is contained in the Scotland’s Future document produced by the Scottish Government at the time of the 2014 referendum.

This proposed a “constitutional platform that would comprise the legal, financial and other arrangements necessary to ensure that Scotland is able to function effectively, and its Government and Parliament are able to work on behalf of the people of Scotland across the full range of national issues”.

While most of the document is laudable, and very far in advance of any UK statements on the matter, this constitutional platform is merely a mechanism for transferring of powers from one parliament to another, not a guarantee of the sovereignty of the people embodied in a liberal-democratic constitutional order.

This is a mistake because it forsakes an excellent opportunity to convince waverers in the next independence referendum that they will not be victimised or disenfranchised by independence.

As a recent documentary called The Great Hack showed, referendums can often turn on the choices made by a relatively small number of uncommitted voters. And this crucial group is likely to be subjected to “dog whistle” social media ads threatening a dire future for voting “the wrong way” – as happened in the Brexit referendum.

This group rightly demands assurance and wants it in writing. In the teeth of massive negative campaigning, they are unlikely to be consoled by pronouncements of politicians that all will be well.

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The best way to make this commitment is in an interim constitution to be agreed upon before the referendum. This interim constitution needs to be entrenched – made resistant to unilateral amendment by the first parliament of an independent Scotland, so that this pledge is guaranteed whatever government is in power after independence.

There are already certain provisions of the Scotland Act that can only be changed by a two-thirds majority, so the principle of such entrenchment is not hard to apply.

It might be the basis for a more ambitious and inclusive post-independence constitution-building project, but at the very least it will be – to use the notorious word – a backstop.

Thus, it can be used on the doorsteps to reassure this vital constituency during a referendum campaign.

Also, the lack of an interim constitution prior to a referendum surrenders to the opposition a platform to devise their own version of a constitutional settlement by suggesting to those who oppose independence that their liberties, or even their lives, may be in jeopardy.

Make no mistake, we are likely to see a UK administration behaving in ways their predecessors would never have contemplated. For example, we now have a Home Secretary who espouses the death penalty and who proposes starving the Irish people over Brexit.

I make this plea. Let us not be drawn into the UK abyss. Let us take the high road. We need to set out in unequivocal terms the contract between the Scottish state and the sovereign people of Scotland. We need to build agreement on a written Scottish constitution – now.

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