Michael Russell: It is the choice of Scots as to who governs them

This remarkable piece of work, designed by Andrew Crummy and undertaken by the wonderfully named Red Lichties Stitching Group, is now on permanent display at the Abbey Visitor Centre, in a frame made by Angus Ross from some of the wood of the Bruce Oak, a tree reputed to have been planted by Robert the Bruce himself.

The Declaration, which takes the form of a letter from Scotland’s Barons and other senior figures to the Pope is often described as Scotland’s first declaration of independence and the tapestry was just one of the many things that were meant to mark its 700th anniversary, it having been signed at Arbroath Abbey on April 6, 1320.

The Arbroath tapestry in its frame

Another commemorative act was the publication of an excellent book written and illustrated by Andrew Redmond Barr which the social historian Elspeth King rightly praised for liberating “ Scotland’s liberation document” and putting it “into the hands of every Scottish citizen”.

But the best-laid plans, as Burns said, gang aft agley. The pandemic put paid to much that had been planned and April 2020 passed without people being able to visit Arbroath and see the place (and the tapestry) for themselves. An attempt to postpone things until April 2021 was also stymied by the persistence of Covid.

Yet all is not lost, because next Saturday there will be a major march in Arbroath which will be both a belated birthday celebration for the document and a reflection of the growing contemporary demand for an independence referendum.

There remains academic controversy around the influence that the Declaration has had on other significant statements like, for example, the American Declaration of Independence.

The formal institution of the still-growing American “Tartan Day” in 1998 was made possible by a resolution of the US Senate the previous year which explicitly made the claim, arguing that “the American Declaration of Independence was modelled on that inspirational document” but some have claimed to see no connection, or to list it with other texts – including the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and the 1581 Dutch Act of Abjuration – which may have had some limited bearing on what the founding fathers of the US sought themselves to declare.

But the importance of the document to Scotland isn’t dependent on external validation. Nor do we have to buy into a rose-tinted narrative about contracted kingship between people and monarch, (given that the definition of “people” in this case was restricted to a very narrow caste of wealthy and influential men) in order to be grateful for it and inspired by it.

What the Declaration affirmed for one age, and still tells this age, is that Scotland is a nation and that it has continued to exist as a distinct nation even in periods of severe difficulty when the interests of those outwith its bounds were largely focused on how possessing and eliminating our distinctive nationhood could benefit them.

Moreover it attests that the choice of the people (no matter how limited a term seven centuries ago) was, and must always be, the key determinant in who will govern Scotland.

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The fact that the Declaration makes reference to an origin beyond Scotland for its people (no matter how fanciful), and the fact that it is addressed outwith the country is also significant. Scotland is placed by the Declaration’s authors within a European context and as part of the wider world, somewhere that they recognised it needed to be, and which we must similarly recognise today.

I spent a lot of my formative years in the SNP marching or demonstrating.

I remember very clearly being at the Gates of Gartcosh in 1985 with Margaret Ewing, Kay Ullrich and Gil Paterson amongst others. I paraded through Uddingston to protest about the closure of Caterpillar in 1987 and spent a weekend condemning the closure of Ravenscraig by supporting a fast by Jim Sillars and Iain Lawson outside St Andrew’s House in 1992, an event which concluded with a torchlight procession up Calton Hill.

Some of those demonstrations were also about the constitution, whether they were in solidarity with the Democracy Vigil or – the smallest one I recall but sincerely meant – holding a banner in Balivanich along with a handful of other members of the SNP’s Uist branch to mark the gerrymandering of the 1979 referendum.

And of course I marched through Glasgow in February 2003 in that huge, remarkable – and widespread – co-ordinated protest against Blair and the war in Iraq.

My marching days are not over, however. I was sorry, because of illness, to miss the All Under One Banner march in Oban in June 2019, but I am now very pleased to have been asked to speak at the same organisations’s Arbroath march and rally next Saturday.

That march will not be against anything, but for something – in fact for three things at least. The first is to affirm the absolute right of the Scottish people to choose the form of government they wish.

The second is to celebrate a 700-year-old document which makes exactly the same point.

And the third is to stand firm for independence just as Scotland did seven centuries ago.

The event will also of course be about solidarity and making common cause. As we prepare for a second indyref we will need to rekindle that spirit of constructive difference in which we campaign positively on what unites us not snipe on social media about what might divide us.

Next Saturday all Yes supporters who are prepared to work together respectfully and constructively have the chance to do just that, whilst also celebrating the remarkable Declaration of Arbroath.

Personally, I am looking forward to marching in that spirit again – and of course to the bracing east coast sea air.