Michael Russell: Failure to respect Scotland's democracy will be Unionists downfall

“People want to see change. A no vote will deliver faster, safer and better change than separation.”

Some voters who were moving towards independence in the final few days of the campaign believed those words and moved back, giving the Union the benefit of the doubt.

Thirty-five years earlier, the same thing had happened when Sir Alec Douglas-Home pleaded with Scotland to turn down Labour’s 1979 devolution proposals, promising that his Tory party would come up with something better.

It didn’t. That was a lie and Scotland suffered a decade of Thatcherism as a result.

“Faster, safer and better change” was, of course, also a lie and one which seems particularly cruel and insulting today as, stripped of our European citizenship, we start another September, some eight years on, facing crippling energy bills, rampant inflation, a deepening recession and the imminent appointment of the fourth Tory prime minister we have had no part in electing or choosing.

People want change more than ever but they also still hanker after simple and seemingly easy solutions, which explains why the current outbreak of “Noonery” – if I might call it that – is attracting so much attention, though it is also being hyped by those whose motives are somewhat less pure.

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Stephen Noon, the former chief strategist of Yes Scotland, is a good, creative and highly intelligent person. I have always enjoyed working with him and I look forward to discussing face-to-face his own thoughts as well as the writings of a variety of theologians and philosophers.

I am sure they can offer valuable guidance regarding how we might go about seeking change in a way that is more unifying than that we are currently achieving, though we should not forget that others, such as the Quaker and writer Alastair McIntosh, have been signposting the need for such a journey for some time.

However, there are some very serious flaws in Stephen’s arguments. For a start, the basis for dialogue of any meaningful sort must be mutual respect and an acceptance of the validity of the positions of both sides.

Yet all the Unionist parties not only refuse to speak with those who support Scottish independence, they deny, decry and ridicule the whole concept. From Truss’s “just ignore her” approach to the First Minister, through to Labour toying with the idea of banning co-operation with independence-supporting parties, at least 50% of Scottish voters and their duly elected representatives are being treated as pariahs and their choice stigmatised as being worthless and well beyond the norms of UK political debate.

In South Africa, change came about because the minority white government accepted that majority rule was inevitable and that apartheid would have to be abolished. In Northern Ireland, dialogue emerged only when the principal of consent was agreed, which opened the door to power sharing.

Former chief Yes strategist Stephen Noon

But in Scotland, the Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders and parties will not even sit down and talk about the constitutional future with an elected Scottish First Minister who, backed by the majority of MSPs, supports independence.

INSTEAD, one of those parties is actively discussing how even the current limited devolution settlement might be further unilaterally curtailed, while another is waiting for an ex-prime minister to hand down tablets of stone about what degree of change will or will not be permitted.

Both approaches exclude those who are most directly affected – the citizens of Scotland – and deny their right to choose for themselves.

In a normal world, discussion about different constitutional options would lead to offers and counter-offers. That is called negotiation and is the bedrock of democratic progress.

However diktat and dismissal is the UK Unionist approach, and, moreover, one in which all contact is seen as a lose-lose rather than a win-win option. Yet even if there was dialogue and a modicum of civilised respect, the concept of Westminster sovereignty would still be a significant barrier.

Only in Wales has Mark Drakeford’s principled leadership moved the dial on that antiquated notion, instead suggesting as a substitute the retention of sovereignty in each constituent nation, to be freely exercised as the people of each nation see fit.

That is a view that fits well with the legal position in Scotland, where the people have always been sovereign, but is the opposite to the prevailing and rigidly imposed UK position.

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Brexit is a process of ever more aggressively entrenching absolute Westminster sovereignty and it is supported by all the UK parties. It perforce makes constitutional change a grace and favour process, subject – as we have seen in these past eight years – not to the choice of the Scottish people but dependent on the will, whim, prejudices and priorities of a much larger electorate south of the Border and a majority secured by their first-past-the-post votes.

Stephen Noon also contends that some sort of gradual strengthening of Scotland in the UK would allow “90%” of what people want to be achieved but that too is wrong.

THE continuation of Westminster sovereignty would not permit, in the most important example, Scotland to rejoin the EU, which is a club of sovereign states. Scotland gaining what is called legal personality would not solve the problem, though it might allow a little more bilateralism.

So rejoining the single market and customs union, enjoying the renewed benefits of free movement of

people, using the advantages of membership to develop new routes

to and from the continent and regaining our European citizenship would all be impossible. So would the removal of nuclear weapons and any principled involvement in international matters.

As Stephen will know, there is in philosophy a concept called “Occam’s Razor” which contends that the simplest of theories be preferred to the more complex.

There are 27 independent countries in the EU and 193 in the UN. National independence, far from being so outlandish and aberrant as to prevent reasonable people engaging with it, is the global norm.

While I agree with Stephen that we need to find a solution to our long-standing constitutional problems for the sake of the people of Scotland, it cannot take place without accepting the legitimacy of those who argue for a democratic outcome now supported by half its population. Nor can it be deemed acceptable if it fails to achieve widely and long-held wishes regarding our national direction of travel.

Scotland needs, and has embarked on, through the efforts of its government reacting to the people’s mandate, a peaceful, positive process of change. Eventually, no matter how it postures now, a UK Government will have to engage with that. History tells us that we are on that road.

The national movement in Scotland should never be afraid of dialogue about such matters and it should welcome the views of critical friends. But it should resist, with every ounce of effort, any and all attempts to delay, divert, dilute and, in the end, defeat its aim of the normality of independence.

We have seen before the damage such siren voices cause.

Remember the “Vow” and all that has followed since.