Wee Ginger Dug: Why claims independence is a 'distraction' are deeply wrong

The independence issue has dominated and defined Scottish politics for a decade and until such time as the matter is definitively settled one way or another it will continue to do so. The only way in which it can be settled is through some sort of democratic event such as a referendum.

Now, of course, the anti-independence parties will argue the question of independence was definitively settled in 2014 when Scotland voted to remain a part of the UK. Nevertheless, a large part of Scottish public opinion feels that the United Kingdom which Scotland was promised in 2014 that it could be a part of is not the United Kingdom in which we currently find ourselves.

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We were told that only a vote against independence could secure Scotland’s place in the EU, yet here we find ourselves not only outside the EU, but also outside the customs union an single market. Despite being promised that Scotland was a partner in a family of nations, we found that after England and Wales narrowly voted to leave the EU, Scotland, was not permitted any input into the form that Brexit was going to take and the extreme form of Brexit that we ended up with was imposed upon Scotland without any consideration for Scotland’s needs or interests.

We also found that despite the promises of the Better Together parties in 2014 that a No vote was a vote for greater devolution, the Conservative Government in Westminster is using the Brexit that Scotland didn’t vote for and which Scotland was given no say in determining as an excuse to undermine and hollow out the devolution settlement and to wrest powers back to Westminster.

This is also despite the Conservatives not having even a shred of a mandate from the Scottish electorate to give them the democratic legitimacy to do this.

For all these reasons and more, the independence issue isn’t just going to go away no matter how much the anti-independence parties might wish that it would. Independence has consistently enjoyed majority support in opinion polls for over a year, and the only real debate about the outcome of May’s Holyrood election is just how large the pro-independence majority is going to be and whether that majority will be won by the SNP alone, or by the SNP together with the Scottish Greens and/or the new Alba Party.

An opinion poll published at the weekend pointed to an SNP majority of one, and that together with a projected with seats for the Greens plus six seats for the new Alba Party that would create a pro-independence majority in the new parliament of 29 seats.

The pro-independence parties would have 79 seats among them, versus just 50 for all the anti-independence parties combined. Both the Conservatives and Labour are projected to lose seats.

You don’t get polling figures like that when the electorate believes talk of independence is a distraction. It’s the consistently high level of support for independence among the Scottish voting public which makes this election a democratic exercise about whether the people of Scotland want another independence referendum, not the supposed obsession of

Nicola Sturgeon or any other pro-independence politician.

Indeed, what we saw during last week’s BBC party leaders’ debate is that the Scottish politician most obsessed with another independence referendum is the Conservatives’ Douglas Ross, who managed to shoehorn his opposition to another referendum into his answer to every question, no matter what the topic.

The Conservatives are very keen to talk about another referendum in order to distract attention from the paucity of their own vision for Scotland and the reality that they are hell-bent on undermining the devolution settlement and have no respect whatsoever for the democratic will of the people of Scotland.

It should be stated right away that no-one is demanding that Scotland has another independence referendum in the middle of the pandemic. The proposal is to have it once the pandemic is over. Far from being a distraction from Scotland’s post-pandemic recovery, the referendum, or more exactly a win for Yes in that referendum, is absolutely critical to determining the shape that Scotland’s post-Covid recovery is going to take.

As things currently stand, the anti-independence parties want that recovery to be left in the hands of a Conservative Government in Westminster which has proven it has no interest in what is best for Scotland or what the people of Scotland actually want, but whose sole concern is pandering to the obsessions of the right-wing English nationalists who have seized control of the Conservative Party.

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The post-Covid recovery they will oversee will not be the best recovery that Scotland can make, and will not be a recovery designed to meet Scotland’s needs or to suit Scotland’s interests. Based on the behaviour of the Conservatives to date, the British Government will attempt to use the recovery to bolster the narrow interests of the Conservative Party and to further weaken and undermine the Scottish Parliament and reduce Scotland’s freedom of movement within the UK.

Far from being a distraction, another referendum is absolutely vital to ensuring the Scottish Parliament and future Scottish governments have at their disposal the full range of economic and political powers of an independent state. This will not only permit them to ensure Scotland’s economic recovery is tailored to suit Scotland’s specific needs and circumstances but also to ensure the Scottish economy is as future proofed as it can be in order to best resist the next global crisis.

Above all, a referendum is vital in order to rescue Scottish democracy from a Conservative Party which has no respect for the will of the people of Scotland as expressed through the ballot box.