IT was with more than a little trepidation and frustration that I spoke in the members’ forum during the SNP convention in Dundee. Both feelings were generated by the failure of our leaders to answer the most basic of questions: “What if we secure majority support in the independence election but Westminster says ‘No’?”

I may have been the lone voice to say it and to provide a possible answer, but I was greatly reassured by the spontaneous applause of approval from so many SNP members in the audience.

It’s all very well for some of our parliamentary leaders to speak of us “taking control” – that alone has an unfortunate resonance – but not a word was said by them in answer to my question. It is a question we must answer!

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If we cannot legally leave the UK without Westminster consent, we are little more than a pressure group and manager of devolution.

As someone who was involved in the two 1974 elections – when the SNP came within a whisper of securing a majority of Scottish seats – while studying for my law degree, which included international law, I have never subscribed to the view that we need to ask anyone’s permission to be a nation state if the people vote for it.

The parliament which the wonderful Winnie Ewing famously reconvened in 1999 was not the parliament which was adjourned in 1707. The Scottish Parliament is the product of Westminster statute. Its legitimacy is ultimately at the whim of Westminster.

However, Scottish MPs collectively gain their right to sit at Westminster not through UK legislation but through the Treaty of Union. As it is an international treaty, it is our Scottish MPs who have the right to withdraw from the voluntary Union by declaring its dissolution when our people vote for it.

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That is the simple answer to the question which I posed, and that is the question which every member is entitled to debate at the branch and regional assembly meetings culminating in our national conference to determine what our party’s policy will be and what instruction we give our MPs who are successful in the election to follow.

I am more than conscious that what is legal in theory needs to be deliverable in practice if we are to attract the votes of around 15% of the electorate who are sympathetic to a Scottish nation state but who will decide their vote based on their perception of whether their lives will be enhanced or not both in the short and longer term.

Crudely, we must buy their votes. Fortunately this transaction is legal and achievable under the current devolution settlement, which empowers the Scottish Parliament to raise more public funding than all existing devolution and reserved taxation and give a Universal Basic Income of £200 or more to every adult and child in Scotland without UK Government consent.

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It never ceases to amaze me that our leaders don’t embrace taxation of land with any urgency, as they all give a nod – though not much more – to it. It was surely significant that the only person from the stage to make the connection between land and independence was Lesley Riddoch. She is not an SNP member but gained resounding support from the SNP members present.

We have but a short window of opportunity to realise our dream of a Scottish nation state as Westminster seeks to smother devolution. The SNP must prosecute the independence election on the basis that if we gain a majority of the vote then the day after the vote our MPs will withdraw from Westminster, form a provisional government and declare the dissolution of the Union. This is the only way to deliver independence.

For those who feel that to put in place a life-enhancing change in public funding and universal support in such a short period of time is monumental and wildly unrealistic, let me say that we have no real option if we are to deliver independence without the consent of the UK Government.

But there is time. Much of the infrastructure to deliver it is already in place. The Scottish Government must direct all its efforts into using the financial powers it has to show the Doubting Thomases that their standards of living are enhanced through our own Scottish efforts in spite of the worst Westminster can throw at us.

I’m reminded of the words of the great Scottish clergyman, John Witherspoon, born in Gifford, minister in Beith and Paisley Low Kirk, who signed the American Declaration of Independence. When another member of the Continental Congress argued that the country was not ripe for such a declaration, Witherspoon responded that in his opinion it was not only ripe for the measure but in danger of rotting for the want of it.

Devolution is rotting before our eyes. SNP members must be given the opportunity to debate how we can gain the support to dissolve the Union.

Graeme McCormick
Arden