I WRITE on the eve of Believe in Scotland’s march and rally in Glasgow, and in the wake of a couple of pieces in this paper, Jonathan Shafi’s of April 16 (“The Yes movement is back at square one and needs a complete renewal”) and Richard Walker’s of April 19 (“Independence is the only goal that Yes movement has to be unified on”). Both writers discern, correctly, that the movement for independence is in a bind.

I might quibble with details. Take Shafi’s “Once the Supreme Court ... delivered its verdict on the Scottish Government’s ability to hold a referendum without Westminster consent, the SNP were caught out ... the party didn’t have an answer.” Well, Sturgeon had given an absolutely forthright anticipatory answer when that summer she had declared in a ministerial statement to the Scottish Parliament that “if the law says [a referendum] is not possible, the General Election will be a de facto referendum”. But she then did nothing about it, and her successor has welched on her promise. Shafi is absolutely spot on, though, when he says that “without ... a clear idea of how independence can be achieved ... the point is being missed”.

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Or here’s Walker’s true insight: “If we don’t have a strategy for actually achieving independence, the campaign to do so will wither on the vine”. But he continues that without indyref2, “it’s a difficult task of finding an alternative route to independence”. Well, it wasn’t difficult for Sturgeon when she addressed Holyrood on what would happen. The problem is that nothing whatsoever was done to follow it through, and the SNP have now run away from it.

But can we hope that both pieces indicate at least that there may be lighting in some recognised voices of the movement a glimmer of appreciation of the one and only way out of our current morass, a way which has been spelled out in clear and simple terms in letter after letter over many months in these pages, but has so far brought not a word of response or action from the SNP. That way is for the people of Scotland to be given their real say on independence in the General Election, by means of the party issuing the appropriate manifesto. This would mean the SNP ditching its current plan for a fake plebiscite, in which it does not seek a head-count majority and reverts to beseeching London’s cooperation, a policy which will not move Scotland so much as a Planck length nearer to independence.

It would entail a manifesto which proclaims that if a majority votes for the party, Scotland will leave the Union. That is in fact the proper legal and constitutional position, and there is no prohibition whatsoever on it. It is one with which London must and will comply. It would have no script to take any contrary stance, given UK Government statements through the years, its entry into the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012, UK law on Northern Irish exit, and the fact that only a nincompoop would assert that England couldn’t leave the Union whenever it wished.

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So if we get to that stage, Scottish independence will actually occur by agreement. But we have to get there. That course would put to the side many of the SNP’s present ills, would bring virtually all indy supporters on board as in 2014, and would harvest, as a starting point, the votes of that half of the population who consistently poll for independence.

Failure to adopt it is to frustrate all efforts of the independence movement and to keep Scotland down. Mr Yousaf and his team remain blind to it. The eyes of the Shafis, the Walkers and many others in the movement may be opening, but how do we bring sight to Bute House?

Ian Roberts
Motherwell and Wishaw