IN the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum, Green Yes – the Scottish Greens’ prospectus for Scotland as an independent country – was characterised by hope.

We talked about how a nuclear-free Scotland could lead the world in peace-making. We talked about how we could improve our democracy by electing our head of state and giving people more power. We talked about how we could design a social security system with care and compassion at its heart. We talked about transforming our economy so that it works for everyone, not just the wealthy few. And we talked about how we could power our new country with cheap, clean, renewable energy.

That hope galvanised many people and, along with other pro-independence groups like the Radical Independence Campaign, helped change the nature of discussion about politics in Scotland.

Our new country could be radically different from the status quo, and I believe that this message of hope, this vision of a greener, more equal, more socially just country, was what shifted support to the 45% we got on referendum day.

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Much has changed in the intervening eight years. The smash-and-grab Brexit referendum damaged our politics: regardless of the result or people’s position on the EU, that ridiculously short referendum campaign made little attempt to explain anything about the EU.

And the consequences for Scotland of the ways in ways in which Westminster has routinely sidelined our country will be felt for decades to come.

The Covid pandemic has affected all of us. It has magnified the injustices and inequalities that perpetuate our society and economy. It has highlighted the consequences of a politics that fails to understand the importance of either planning or knowledge in decision-making. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and spiralling energy costs have brought into sharp focus discussions about energy, security, defence and more.

We face what seems like a perfect storm of crises: the climate crisis, an energy crisis, the cost of living crisis, war in Europe, potential breakdown of our food security networks … things look bleaker now than they did nearly a decade ago.

So, as we look to the next independence referendum, our task as activists and campaigners must be to rekindle the hope we fired up in 2014.

Aberdeen – and the North East more generally – desperately needs that hope. Oil and gas brought great wealth to some in the region, but the benefits of the fossil-fuel boom were not evenly distributed. In many ways, there has been a two-speed economy in the North East: those directly involved in oil and gas doing very well; those far removed from oil and gas often doing less well. Now, as oil and gas decline, even fewer people are doing well out of the industry that drove Scotland’s economy for five decades.

When we were pulling together our vision for an independent Scotland in Green Yes, we put the concept of a Just Transition – borrowed from workers making weapons at Lucas Aerospace in the 1970s – at its heart. Those workers were concerned that they were manufacturing murder machines that would be used to kill workers and their families in other parts of the world. They wanted to transform what they were doing to produce useful things, rather than contribute to death and destruction. We saw this as a precedent for what would be needed for the fossil-fuel industries across Scotland.

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We want to apply this concept of Just Transition not just to one site or one industry but across society. We need to replace the energy jobs that will be lost in fossil fuels, but also create jobs in other sectors: care, digital, public transport, local food production – jobs that do good for everyone. All of these jobs must have good pay and decent conditions to properly support our communities. We must rebalance power so that communities have more control and ownership over their everyday lives.

The transition to a renewables-based energy economy has to be at the heart of our campaign for independence once again. We cannot fail the workers and communities who currently rely on jobs in oil and gas in the way that miners and their communities were failed by Thatcher. We must not continue to let the vested interests of energy oligarchs dictate our politics.

And we can start this process without independence: I am pleased the Scottish Greens secured the £500 million Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray as part of our co-operation agreement with the Scottish Government. We need to ensure we spend that well. Workers and communities must be at the forefront of deciding how that money is used. We must ensure that we use this fund in ways that show how much more we could do with all the financial levers and other powers that independence would bring.

If we get the Just Transition right – and we cannot afford to get it wrong – it will help solve each of the crises we currently face. It will radically transform our economy, our politics and our society for the better. And it will lay the strongest of foundations on which we can build our new country. That is hope!