A coalition of pro-independence activists from Inverness have studied the Sustainable Growth Commission’s report and plan to present their findings at the Aviemore National Assembly.
The coalition, made up of activists from Common Weal Inverness and InverYes, have dedicated several evenings to examining the Growth Commission’s reports and their own report highlights their areas of agreement and disagreement. You can read their findings in full here.
This examination came about as a result of the group forming a book club to read through and study Common Weal’s book “How to Start a New Country” which outlines a roadmap from an independence referendum through to independence day and is being held up as an alternative prospectus to the report produced by the Growth Commission.
Common Weal Inverness and InverYes have given us permission to publish their findings here in the hope that it can influence the discussions at the other assemblies and can guide other groups who are looking at the Growth Commission’s report with a similar degree of detail.
Speaking about their response document, the group said:
The project came about as a natural extension of the group’s consideration of Common Weal’s HOW TO START A NEW COUNTRY, the group being a mongrel band of activists as befits the Yes family and operating under the banner of InverYes.
Because of the stimulating discussion at the early stage of the group’s endeavours we rather went sleep walking into the Growth Commission document and it wasn’t long before we came to realise what we’d let our selves in for. None of us were economists, none of us were political strategists but we decided that as this is our collective independence we’re working towards, instead of leaving it to commentators and politicians to guide us in what we should be thinking and informing our opinion on what is an important piece of work, we needed to ‘man-up’ and ‘woman-up’ and this is the product of what was a challenging, enjoyable and above all a shared learning experience.
Common Weal has launched a campaign for an independent Scotland to launch its own currency and has published several papers promoting this and other ideas. The SNP have scheduled three National Assemblies to allow members to discuss the Growth Commission’s report. These will be held in Ayr on August 25th, Aviemore on September 1st, and Edinburgh on September 9th.