CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says it's time to set out a proper plan and timetable for Scottish independence
ST ANDREW'S DAY is one of those times which acts as a focus for a 'where are we now?' discussion. Given that I've placed quite a lot of emphasis on St Andrew's Day 2018 as a key staging-post to independence, for me it is also a useful signpost of 'where next'?
So where do we stand? There's been a slight downturn in support for independence according to one opinion poll. Certainly there is very little evidence of rising support for independence overall (which disguises movements in either direction post-Brexit).
So what's the strategy? We again read that Nicola Sturgeon thinks Brexit could lead to Scottish independence. Even setting aside the fact that this doesn't appear to be happening, I think the evidence for that is questionable.
I continue to be surprised that, by all appearances, a Brexit-driven independence strategy seems to be all that remains on the table. Once again we seem to have a Plan B problem.
If that's the case, it would make the more important question for the independence movement 'what else can lead to Scottish independence?'. Because I continue to be surprised that, by all appearances, a Brexit-driven independence strategy seems to be all that remains on the table. Once again we seem to have a Plan B problem.
Which is, I suppose, at least a little fitting because we've not really done much to resolve our last Plan B issue over currency. And that leaves us in a situation where evidence suggests that attachment to Sterling could remain a serious barrier.
No shift in the polls. No shift in underlying attitudes. No desire for a campaign which might shift underlying attitudes. No desire for a referendum. And no-one offering any leadership over how any of these things might change.
Frankly, if you're an independence supporter and not feeling a degree of worry over these things, then you should be. And if you're about to say something like 'but all this appeared in the unionist media' or 'polls have a three per cent margin of error' then you probably shouldn't.
We're not going to win independence through denial and we're not going to win it through the power of crossed fingers. I know I've been going on and on about the need for some kind of strategy, some kind of plan. But we're reaching a crossroads.
Frankly, if you're an independence supporter and not feeling a degree of worry over these things, then you should be.
Either Nicola Sturgeon needs to recant her 'highly likely in two years' statement and put the independence movement back into mothballs, or she needs to join and support an independence campaign.
Because where we stand right now is unhealthy. Scotland is in a state of paralysis in which large numbers of people are biting their tongues about what is and isn't happening in domestic policy, where political realignment is impossible, where the act of supporting independence is doing more to suppress change than to promote it.
If independence is to be taken off the table for a generation then we need to know so we can behave as if the Scottish Government is a Scottish Government and not a social movement.
But there is absolutely no reason to take independence off the table. It is perfectly possible to achieve independence in the next few years, so long as we realise that you can't win an argument without arguing.
At a public meeting recently an audience member told me that they understood that I was really against opinion polling. This greatly surprised me. There are lots of flaws in opinion surveys but they are about all we have to tell us what people currently think about a particular question given the information they have. Opinion polling should never be ignored.
We're not going to win independence through denial and we're not going to win it through the power of crossed fingers.
That doesn't mean it should be taken as an immutable statement of fact. The crucial part of the previous paragraph is 'given the information they have'.
Let's take that rather useful invention, electricity. Electricity was available in the Victorian era but didn't take off. In fact, if they had been given the vote, it is very likely that Victorians would have voted decisively to reject electricity.
And why wouldn't they? It was new, it was unknown, it was therefore risky. If no-one told them the advantages, or explained how it could be made safe, or pointed out the risks that would be avoided by replacing gas and coal in the home, how would they come to see electricity as a good idea?
So if we keep looking at opinion polls and discover that people who have access only to the same information on independence that they did in 2014 (without any updating at all) but with additional information on oil prices and chaotic Brexit, what would make us think those polls would change?
It might be worth recognising that the independence movement still hasn't had a conversation about what happened in 2014. We've kind of accepted that the case contained flaws, but we haven't said what they are, why they were flawed or what we should have done instead.
I think it is time for the movement to accept that we only have two tasks – we need to design a viable, serious plan for an independent Scotland, rich in detail and properly tested.
Fundamentally, the 2014 White Paper would have made Scotland constitutionally independent but so reliant on the remainder of the UK for large swathes of its public life that we'd have been more like a kind of dependency, a nation without a currency.
But such is politics that the people who wrote it seem to see such an admission as a sign of weakness and anyone who whispers it as a threat and a dissident. So on we plough.
My partner is a filmmaker and one of the recent additions to film lexicon is 'we can fix it in post' – it means that computers can correct mistakes after the actual filming work is completed. What it really means is let's pretend a problem isn't a problem and somehow we'll worry about it later. It seldom works.
So all those doubts people had and still have – will we fix it in post? Will we wait to do something about it until the second campaign is actually underway?
In the marketing world, you'd probably want to allow a new brand of toothpaste six months or a year of non-stop promotion before you'd expect it to have successfully seeped into the conciousness of the wider public.
If we think we can somehow build the plan in secret, by focus group, as if that means the persuasion work is already done then we deserve to be filed under 'See Hillary Clinton'.
Yet somehow the people of Scotland are supposed to come round to accepting all the new ideas which would be contained in a vote for independence but without anyone mentioning the ideas in advance.
I think it is time for the movement to accept that we only have two tasks – we need to design a viable, serious plan for an independent Scotland, rich in detail and properly tested. We then need to persuade the people of Scotland that it is a good idea.
If we can't do both, we deserve to lose. And if we think we can somehow build the plan in secret, by focus group, as if that means the persuasion work is already done then we deserve to be filed under 'See Hillary Clinton'.
So for what it's worth, here's what I'd do if it was up to me (which it very much isn't).
Last night I'd have announced that a two-year project was being kicked off to create a proper plan – and that the only way we can do it is to draw on every scrap of expertise and knowledge that there is in Scotland. That we can only do it properly if we do it collectively.
So for what it's worth, here's what I'd do if it was up to me: Last night I'd have announced that a two-year project was being kicked off to create a proper plan.
It would take every issue and tackle it properly, not based on what looks easiest or less risky (a lack of courage which I think was perceptible last time) but on what seems to be the best answer to the question.
(We've been working hard on the White Paper Project and it is really invigorating to ask these questions and try and answer them properly. I can already see the outline of a plan for an independent Scotland which is genuinely convincing and genuinely exciting – though certainly a lot more work.)
At the same time I'd build up nation-wide cross party independence campaigns to replace the Yes Scotland network which was so recklessly dismantled after the campaign. They should begin proper area plans, real local strategies, proper communication, substantial effective training.
And I'd start to develop a proper campaigning organisation with an actual strategy being developed properly and mutually. I understand if the SNP doesn't want to campaign for independence because it sees its interests elsewhere just now. But it shouldn't then block everyone else – and its members who want to develop a campaign should be offered a vehicle.
This would all lead up to St Andrew's Day 2018 when this 'consolidated business plan for a new independent Scottish nation state' would be launched with all the national fanfare of the Scottish Claim of Right in 1989. It would be a new case.
This would all lead up to St Andrew's Day 2018 when this 'consolidated business plan for a new independent Scottish nation state' would be launched with all the national fanfare of the Scottish Claim of Right in 1989. It would be a new case.
From there we would be free to campaign. And whether we were in the short timetable (a sharp six-month information campaign followed by a three-month referendum) or the long timetable (perhaps five or 10 years of making the case like the Scottish Constitutional Convention had to), we're finally ready to move forward.
There is still nothing I've seen which makes me believe we can't win – other than our own inaction. St Andrew's Day offers us a lens through which to look at ourselves. We should use it and be honest.
If we do we'll realise the overwhelming need to do something.
Picture courtesy of Robin McAlpine
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