I would be in total agreement with Old John (We deserve to know what Stephen Flynn means about the next election) were it not for his silly, simplistic notion that the constitutional issue might be satisfactorily resolved by an election that some people want to pretend is a proper constitutional referendum. The de facto referendum idea appeals to politicians who are stupid, politicians who think voters are stupid, and voters who prove them right.

If the SNP do not stop the rot then I feel that John Swinney must come out and say that the next time the people of Scotland vote in an election it will be to leave this voluntary Union.

Before adherents to the Church of the Holy Plebiscitary Election pile on (Good morning, Rev. Angus Brendan MacNeil!), I am not saying a de facto referendum is not possible. What I am saying is that a de facto referendum can never be conclusive enough to be the last word on a matter as momentous as ending the Union. A fact for which we should be eternally grateful. Try thinking about it. Think it through. Consider all the implications.

Consider this! If an election can be declared a decisive referendum by the pro-independence side, then the same must be true for the pro-Union side. If the fans of a de facto referendum manage to successfully argue that an election can be a referendum, what is to prevent fans of the Union using the same argument to make an election in which they win the majority of votes a referendum that favours the Union?

Don’t think it can happen? It is already happening! There are already Unionists claiming that the 2026 Scottish Parliament election was a vote for remaining part of the UK based on the fact that the (nominally) pro-independence parties (SNP and SGP) won only 40.5% of the constituency vote and 41.2% of the regional vote. Even if we include the other nominally pro-independence parties – none of which broke the 1% barrier – it still leaves the pro-independence total well short of a majority. If May’s election had been the referendum some wanted it to be, Scotland’s cause would have suffered a severe trouncing from which it would not quickly recover.

How about the UK general election in 2024? How would that have worked out if it had been declared a de facto referendum? In the Scottish part of that election, the four main Unionist parties – Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, and Reform UK – took nearly 65% of the vote. Had that been a de facto referendum, it too would have been a resounding defeat for Scotland’s cause.

Proponents of the de facto referendum will say that the outcome in either case or both might have been very different had the election campaign been fought on the basis that what was at stake was independence. Fair point! It might have altered the outcome. But then again, it might not. And even if it did alter the outcome to the benefit of the pro-independence side, would it have changed the result sufficiently to overturn the pro-Union side’s lead of between ten and fifteen points?

That is one hell of a gamble, given what we stand to lose. Because what we would lose in both cases is not just that de facto referendum but the possibility of a proper constitutional referendum any time in the foreseeable future. We’d have had our second referendum. And we’d have lost. The de facto referendum card is a card you only get to play once.

When we eventually secure the means and opportunity to fully and freely exercise our right of self-determination, we must do it properly. We must do it in a way that is conclusive. The outcome must be beyond any rational challenge. So, it might be best if the de facto referendum idea were allowed to die a richly deserved death.

Yesterday, commenting on the latest ‘one more push’ urging from Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, I likened the independence industry to one of those wheels pet hamsters run on. It sucks up all the energy of the independence movement but never goes anywhere. It was a throwaway remark. But it struck me afterwards what an apt analogy this is for the last ten or eleven years. Day in and day out we’ve had the SNP and/or The National and/or Believe in Scotland encouraging us to keep the treadmill of their orthodoxy turning by holding independence just out of our reach. Day in and day out, the independence movement has dutifully trudged, only to find independence still beyond our grasp.

That same metaphor came to mind again today as I read that the SNP is to introduce a Westminster bill to devolve indyref powers. Then, as I read the comments lauding this brilliant political manoeuvre, I was overcome by a wave of the despairing weariness that has become so familiar. It doesn’t seem to matter how stale or insipid the fare offered by the independence industry is; people still lap it up.

I stopped doing the marches and rallies only in part on account of my legs not being up to the job any more. The other thing that put me off was the realisation that I was listening to the same speeches I’d heard at every rally I’d attended since the 2014 sham independence referendum. Even more affecting was the sight and sound of independence activists cheering those speeches as they held Saltires aloft. There was a moment at a gathering outside the Scottish Parliament building when it occurred to me that these same people would be applauding the same speeches five, ten, or twenty years hence.

This latest bit of political farce from the SNP isn’t even original. Ash Regan and Neal Hanvey have both played this game. Nothing came of either of those Bills, and nothing will come of this one. The treadmill will spin. Scotland’s cause will make no progress. Apologists for the SNP will tell us it is a worthwhile exercise even if it does nothing other than demonstrate the pointlessness of the exercise. We are told that having this Bill squashed by English MPs will show how powerless Scotland is within the British state. We’ve been told the same thing on countless occasions over the past decade. We are told the same story every time the SNP launches some ‘bold initiative’ which everybody knows will be devoid of effect. We are told it will increase support for independence when people see how badly Scotland is treated. The SNP continues to invite bad treatment. Support for independence doesn’t increase at all. But just you wait! Next time, it’ll work!

It will never work. Westminster cannot transfer powers which supersede its own powers. The doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty forbids it. A fact so obvious we must suppose at least one of those eight SNP MPs is aware of it. They surely know that the Bill will not become an Act. It is not unreasonable to suppose they also know that the sole purpose of the exercise is to make it look as if the SNP is actually doing something on the constitutional issue.

The treadmill turns. We make no progress.

I was neither shocked nor even surprised when I read the headline over the top article on The National’s website this morning—Scotland Office blocks release of files on Section 30 and independence. They would, wouldn’t they? If you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor, the newspaper’s Freedom of Information (FoI) request took something of a scattergun approach to its fishing expedition.

We asked for any internal documents – such as briefs, emails, meeting notes and minutes – which refer to Scottish independence, a Section 30 order, a referendum, the SNP and the Scottish Greens.

Our request also included asking for any material that Scotland Office ministers or senior officials may have sent to Number 10, the Cabinet Office or the Treasury.

We are not told what time period the FoI covered, but I strongly suspect this would constitute a very large proportion of the paperwork generated by the Scotland Office in any period. Given that the period included a Scottish general election and that John Swinney had telegraphed his intention to beg permission to hold another sham independence referendum, it might have been a good idea to limit the FoI request to records mentioning or alluding to a Section 30 order. After all, we are already acquainted with how the British establishment regards the SNP and the SGP. Material relating to Swinney’s supplication for a Section 30 order would be the juicy stuff.

It would, for example, be interesting to know whether the British state’s man in Scotland had briefed his bosses in London on the pros and cons of granting Swinney’s request. Prior to the election, I remarked that if Keir Starmer were smart, he’d shoot Swinney’s fox by offering a Section 30 order before the election, slapping some crippling conditions on the thing after Swinney had accepted the offer with ill-advised alacrity.

I’ll wager the Brits gamed this strategy at some point. If they had believed there was some ‘Big Secret Plan’ that would come into play following refusal of a Section 30 order, a preemptive offer might have seemed an appealing option. Perhaps appealing enough to outweigh the media mauling that would surely be prompted by Starmer ‘pandering to those uppity Jocks’. But, of course, if they had gamed the scenario, they would have concluded that there was no ‘Big Secret Plan’. So, the inevitable accusations of ‘going soft on separatism’ would be the clincher.

Another thing that might well have been revealed had the FoI succeeded is internal discussion of how the British state’s propaganda machinery might encourage the idea that the election be a de facto referendum on independence. This too would have suited Unionists very nicely. Especially if John Swinney had pinned a ‘Yes’ win to the SNP getting an outright majority. In the highly unlikely event of such a win, Unionists could dismiss the idea that it was a referendum, and if/when the SNP failed to get a majority of seats, they could say we’d had our second referendum and should shut up about independence for the next few decades.

The image at the top of this article is one of my favourite pictures of Alex Salmond. I imagine him looking justifiably smug having got the best deal possible while David Cameron realises he has given away too much. In my mind I picture Keir Starmer and John Swinney in a similar pose but with the roles reversed—Starmer looking like the cat that got the canary while John Swinney belatedly sees the trap he has walked into.

The Sunday National’s FoI request may have suffered the same fate as Swinney’s Section 30 supplication, but we can have a bit of fun speculating as to what might have been revealed.

Prompted by some recent comments on social media regarding various initiatives by different elements of the independence movement, I want to address a couple of fallacies which have long troubled me. The first is the contention that the constitutional issue is extremely complex and that the campaign to restore Scotland’s independence therefore requires input from a wide range of experts in fields such as economics, history, and constitutional law.

In fact, the constitutional issue in Scotland could hardly be simpler. It is a binary issue. There are only two sides. There are only two possible answers to the question at the heart of the constitutional issue. Regardless of how that question is framed, it’s always a yes/no question. Should Scotland be an independent country? Should Scotland withdraw from the political union with England? Do you have confidence that the people of Scotland are capable of managing Scotland’s affairs? Always, it ultimately comes down to a far from complicated choice.

Politicians and the scavengers that swarm around them hoping to pick up scraps of power like to portray matters of public policy as highly involved and themselves as the ‘experts’ who will take care of things so that the rest of us don’t need to worry our silly little heads about it. The constitutional issue has come to be treated as just another policy issue sitting alongside the economy, healthcare, defence, and all the rest. This suits Unionists as it opens up to them a vast range of opportunities for generating or aggravating doubt in the minds of voters. As I have often stated, the ‘Project Fear’ epithet attached to the anti-independence side in the 2014 referendum campaign missed the point. It would more aptly have been called ‘Project Doubt’.

The constitution is special. The constitution is the rule book for a state. It sets out the fundamental principles by which the state is governed, including the organisation of government and the rights and duties of citizens. It serves as the highest law, ensuring that power is exercised within defined limits.

Scotland’s cause has been purposefully burdened with matters that should not affect the constitution but rather should be affected by it. Policy is rightly contingent on the provisions of the constitution. The constitution should not be subject to policy. Economic circumstances should not inform constitutional provisions, for example. Assuming these to be democratic principles, if we are asking how much democracy we can afford, we are getting things entirely arse over elbow. Economic policy is formulated in accordance with the constitution. The constitution does not adapt to current economic policy. A constitutional question cannot be answered using a calculator.

The second fallacy I wish to address can be summed up by the idiom ‘the more the merrier’. Or ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’. It is the idea that the greater the number and diversity of initiatives, the more Scotland’s cause benefits. It’s the notion that there may be numerous ‘routes’ to independence and that all are similarly valid and worth pursuing. Unfortunately, diversity all too readily becomes division, and profusion tends to have the unintended consequence of diffusion.

Let’s take the profusion of initiatives first. It can be argued that there might be two or more ‘routes’ to independence. The problem arises when this is taken to imply that there must be more than one ‘route’, and possibly several. Once that assumption is made, all manner of candidates apply to be included in the catalogue of ‘routes’. It quickly gets to be that a proposition need only attach the word ‘independence’ to itself before demanding to be considered a valid and viable ‘route’.

Some of these candidates have no connection to the constitutional issue at all. Or at best a very tenuous one. One example of the former is a certain individual’s obsession with ‘taking Tony Blair to The Hague’. The argument is peppered with references to independence, but it is never explained how one relates to the other. In the category of things which may be thought to have a tenuous or tangential association with the constitutional issue, we have the proponents of Swiss-style direct democracy. The claim is made that the introduction of direct democracy through incorporation in Scots law of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) would enable us to have a referendum on independence. In the first place, incorporation of ICCPR is not happening any time soon because there is no political will. Secondly, incorporation of ICCPR would have no immediate effect. It would take years and quite possibly decades to set up the necessary machinery. Finally, incorporation of ICCPR would not amend the Scotland Act. The Union would remain a reserved matter. ICCPR would only allow for referendums in areas of devolved responsibility.

(Experience tells me that I must emphasise at this point that I am not saying ICCPR cannot be incorporated into Scots law. Nor am I arguing against incorporation. I am merely stating the reality of the matter.)

There is a plethora of initiatives claiming to be pertinent to Scotland’s cause. Many of them particular to a given locality, or tied to a particular policy agenda Each one of these absorbs a certain part of the independence movement’s energy and resources. As a consequence, we have a profusion of small, weak campaigns when what is called for is a single, coordinated national effort.

It may be unremarkable that there should be this profusion of (nominally) pro-independence initiatives given the failure of the SNP to provide the kind of leadership that pre-empts degenerative factionalism. What might perplex the disinterested observer is the fact that this dividing of forces continues long after its deleterious effect on the campaign has become plainly evident.

Hamish Morrison writes in The National today (Pro-independence MSPs respond to ‘decolonise Scotland’ letter),

Liberate Scotland wrote to all 73 pro-independence Holyrood representatives to make them aware of its efforts to achieve Scottish independence through appeals to the United Nations.

Firstly, the name of the organisation is Liberation Scotland. Liberate Scotland is a totally different entity. It is the original name of the political party which contested the 2026 Scottish general election as Alliance to Liberate Scotland.

Secondly, Liberation Scotland’s UN initiative is not intended to “achieve Scottish independence through appeals to the United Nations”. The UN cannot restore Scotland’s independence. Only the people of Scotland can do that. And only when we secure the means and opportunity to fully and freely exercise our right of self-determination.

The object of the Liberation Scotland UN initiative is to have Scotland’s status as a territory annexed by England-as-Britain recognised. The evidence supporting this claim is very substantial. Liberation Scotland has done a tremendous amount of research and compiled a case sufficient to persuade no less a legal academic than Robert Black KC, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh. But success for this initiative will not in itself restore Scotland’s independence. In fact, having Scotland added to the UN list of non-self-governing territories (NSGT) would have no immediate or direct impact on the constitutional issue. At best, it might augment the internal (to Scotland) party-political and parliamentary process which will restore our independence. If only such a process were in place or in prospect.

Hamish Morrison’s errors are readily explained by the fact that The National tends to conflate independence with the SNP. It has little or no interest in that part of the independence movement which dissents from the orthodoxies of what I have termed the independence industry. A term which includes The National along with the SNP, Believe in Scotland and others.

The attitude of the SNP is perfectly illustrated by Alyn “Never Closer” Smith, MSP for Stirling, who, commenting on a communication he claimed he hadn’t received, said,

I obviously wish them well and take a ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ attitude to the wider Yes movement, if they turn up something we’ve missed I’ll be the first to applaud.

But, I disagree with their interpretation and do not see any useful outcomes from their approach.

I’m tempted to call this guy a dullard, but he’s smart enough to keep getting himself aboard the elected office gravy train. So, maybe not so stupid, after all. It would not be at all surprising if Smith were commenting from the vantage point of profound ignorance. I know from personal experience just how frantically averse the SNP is to anything that is not approved by the party’s leadership. I have tried to engage them in a conversation about alternative approaches to the constitutional issue, and the reaction is a blank refusal to even listen. They stop just short of sticking their fingers in their ears and loudly singing la-la-la.

The spokesbladder for the SNP is no better.

Last month, voters across Scotland made their voices heard loud and clear by electing more pro-independence MSPs than at any time in the history of the Scottish Parliament.

We now have first ministers in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland all committed to fundamental constitutional change showing that people across these isles are fed up with the broken Westminster system which doesn’t work for them.

Within the first month of the new Scottish Parliament, MSPs voted for the powers to hold a referendum on Scottish independence to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Whoever has the keys to Number 10 next can’t carry on ignoring the will of the Scottish people to decide on their own future.

This reply doesn’t begin to address Liberation Scotland’s open letter. It seems the spokesbladder is also ignorant of the content of the communication. The response merely reiterates the SNP leadership’s ‘strategy’ of granting the British state a veto over the will of Scotland’s people. It’s almost as if they are proud of this treachery. The final sentence encapsulates the idiocy of the SNP’s approach to the constitutional issue. It seems they genuinely imagine that the British state “can’t carry on ignoring the will of the Scottish people to decide on their own future“. Yes, they fucking well can, you cretin!. As long as the SNP Scottish Government persists in granting the British state a veto over the will of Scotland’s people, the British state will continue to use that veto to defend their precious Union.

It is clear that the SNP leadership no more understands the nature of the British state than it does the nature of the constitutional issue. As far as we can tell, John Swinney genuinely believes that he is wearing down the British state’s resistance to a new referendum. He really imagines they will relent. Just as he imagines a Section 30 referendum is a route to independence, never mind the only such route. How can Swinney possibly know that his is the only route when he has never so much as glanced at alternatives, far less considered them?

In 2012, when the Edinburgh Agreement was signed, it was generally believed that restoring Scotland’s independence was simply a matter of getting a ‘Yes’ vote in a referendum held using powers temporarily and conditionally transferred to the Scottish Parliament from Westminster. Looking back, it is hard to credit that we could be so naive. I started to have serious doubts about the Section 30 process some time before the vote. I don’t imagine I was alone in this. For obvious reasons, I chose to keep my own counsel on the matter. We had to push for a ‘Yes’ vote anyway, so there was no point in saying anything about how flawed the whole affair was.

After the vote in September 2014, the self-imposed embargo on criticism of the Section 30 process was lifted. Over the next few years, new thinking on the constitutional issue developed in the ‘intellectual wing’ of the independence movement. This new thinking was informed by the work of Liberation Scotland and a host of other organisations, groups, and individuals—including myself. It was a comprehensive reframing of the entire constitutional issue which, in my own case, led to development of the #ScottishUDI strategy.

The SNP did not participate in the development of this new thinking. The SNP leadership, from Nicola Sturgeon onwards, did everything it could to suppress discussion within the party of anything which departed from the party line laid down by the party leader. We now have an SNP leader and First Minister whose thinking on the constitutional issue is more than a decade out of date. He evidently continues to believe that there is a route to independence through a legal and constitutional framework which developed over decades and centuries in the context of an imperative to preserve the Union.

Swinney continues to believe it possible for Westminster to transfer powers that supersede its own, giving the people of Scotland the final say and not the parliament of England-as-Britain.

He continues to insist that an “agreed referendum” is the only way and that the UK government will eventually agree if we, the people of Scotland, just keep on voting for his party.

He holds fast to the notion that, uniquely to Scotland, the ‘administering power’ has a rightful, necessary, and controlling role in the process by which independence is restored.

This is the ‘thinking’ of a very thoroughly colonised mind which does not question a ‘natural order’ that ranks Scotland subordinate to England-as-Britain. We have a First Minister and a Scottish Government paralysed by the conviction that they can only act to restore Scotland’s independence with the consent and cooperation of those who are most determinedly opposed to the restoration of Scotland’s independence.

When the colonised mind considers the constitutional issue, Westminster is at the centre. When that mind is decolonised, the people of Scotland take their rightful place at the centre of all thinking on the constitutional issue. Scotland’s fight to restore our independence is being led and managed by people who have not yet begun to decolonise their own minds. What possible hope is there for Scotland’s cause so long as this is the case?

The Scottish National Party, The National newspaper, and Believe in Scotland—this is the triad of the independence industry. A triad which is mired in the orthodoxy of the Sturgeon doctrine, which we might now call the Swinney doctrine. Until the new thinking penetrates this triad, Scotland’s cause will remain stuck fast in a superannuated framing of the constitutional issue which makes progress impossible. I don’t think it’s overstating the case to say that the rather slapdash nature of Hamish Morrison’s report on Liberation Scotland’s open letter to MSPs testifies to a cold disdain for the part of the independence movement which has learnt to think outside the stultifying bounds of the British box.

Browsing the media at the moment, one might be forgiven for supposing that nothing much was happening in the world other than some football tournament. Amidst this World Cup fever, you may have forgotten that voters go to the polls tomorrow (Thursday 18 June) in two quite significant by-elections—one in England and one here in Scotland.

The Makerfield by-election is noteworthy because the current favourite to win, British Labour’s Andy Burnham, is almost certain to challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the role of party leader and, hence, the title of Prime Minister. That’s how the British political system works. A by-election result can effectively decide who holds the highest political office in the UK.

For all the hype, Burnham becoming PM is unlikely to make a lot of difference to the direction in which the UK is being dragged by Reform, British Labour’s main challenger in the Makerfield race. The area is a hotbed of support for Nigel Farage’s party, which almost swept the board in the Greater Manchester Council elections last year. Robert Kenyon’s chances of taking the seat for Reform UK may be spoilt by the presence of the Restore Britain candidate, Rebecca Shepherd. Whatever the outcome, it is now the far right which is dictating the political agenda in England. No matter who is leader, we won’t see British Labour moving to the left any time soon.

A change in the occupant of No. 10 Downing Street has no implications for Scotland’s cause. Andy Burnham will be no more impressed by the Scottish Parliament’s vote in favour of a new referendum than Starmer. If John Swinney opts to submit a supplication for a Section 30 order anew, he’ll get the same answer, perhaps delivered by a different lackey.

I suspect Swinney will choose to make a fresh ‘demand’ for a Section 30 order if only because it can be presented as him taking action, however pointless it may be. He is very good at looking busy while doing nothing of any consequence.

Here in Scotland, the Aberdeen South by-election is an early test of SNP support. If Richard Thomson wins, as the bookies predict, John Swinney will breathe a sigh of relief if he can take some time off from all the photo-ops the football provides. The SNP candidate’s nearest rival is Douglas Lumsden, currently a Tory list MSP. If he were to win, Unionist glee would be unbounded. But these days it would be foolish to discount the Reform UK candidate, Jo Hart. Turnout is likely to be low, and this tends to favour the more extreme parties, as their support is more motivated to vote than others.

The most interesting thing in the Aberdeen South by-election may be the contest for second place. If Reform beats the Tories into third place, the talk will all be of the threat posed by the far right.

Again, a win for the SNP will mean nothing for Scotland’s cause. We’ll still be looking at five more years in the doldrums. Swinney will claim a strengthened mandate as he pleads for permission to hold a referendum which is actually no more than a glorified opinion poll. His plea will be dismissed as readily by Andy Burnham as by any other British Prime Minister. So long as Scotland’s First Minister gives the British state a veto, the British state will use it.

Reading over what I’ve written here, it comes across as an effort to make the two by-elections seem interesting. It never stood a chance, did it?

In a recent article I commented on the dearth of news relating to the constitutional issue and the fact that this reflected the lack of any action on the part of the Scottish Government to progress Scotland’s cause. I might well have commented in a similar vein today. On the whole front page of The National’s website, there is not a single mention of independence or anything directly pertaining thereto.

There is, of course, lots of stuff about the World Cup and Scotland’s victory against the mighty Haiti. While I am delighted by the result and especially pleased for the fans who always do Scotland proud when they travel as the Tartan Army, I am otherwise taking very little interest in the tournament. I’ve seen the day I’d have stayed up to watch every one of Scotland’s matches. These days, however, I can’t see a mention of the subject without recalling Jim Sillars’s understandable bitter remark:

Scotland has too many ninety-minute patriots whose nationalist outpourings are expressed only at major sporting events.

Other than the football, the Sunday National takes an interest in the UK’s defence budget, the racism of the far right, and climate change, among other things. As I write, the top story is a rather strange ‘Westminster bad’ piece about MPs spending taxpayers’ money with firms which have direct experience that is relevant to the work that MPs do. Needless to say, the below-the-line comments are a festival of knee-jerk outrage out of all proportion to a practice which we are assured involved a relatively trifling sum of money and no wrongdoing or breach of regulations. As scandals go, this doesn’t.

I used the qualified phrase “directly pertaining” to the constitutional issue advisedly. Because everything comes back to the constitution ultimately. A point I feel obliged to make far more often than should be necessary. The constitutionally anomalous and grotesquely asymmetric Union necessarily impacts every aspect of life in Scotland—invariably, to Scotland’s detriment. The Union cannot do other than adversely affect everything in Scotland because the constitution regulates the capacity to effect change, and the Union removes and withholds from Scotland’s people the full and free capacity to effect change that is rightfully vested in the people of Scotland and our democratic institutions.

Some will respond to the above by referring to devolution and the Scottish Parliament. Surely, they will argue, this represents the capacity to effect change being in the hands of the people who elect the Scottish Parliament. But this capacity is neither full nor free. The purpose of devolution is to delineate and curtail the capacity to effect change. The capacity is in no case full. Exercise of the capacity to effect change is ultimately subject to the approval of the British state. This is true even where there is a very convincing appearance of the capacity being exercised freely.

Here’s an illuminating exercise anybody can undertake any day of the week. The National website’s front page features twenty items in three tiers. Go through those articles and count how many are at base about something that would all but certainly be changed if the people of Scotland possessed the unfettered capacity to effect change.

Take, as an example, The Ferret piece about land ownership in Scotland and Andy Wightman’s noble efforts in this fundamental aspect of life in Scotland. Who can doubt that given the full and free capacity to effect change, foreign ownership of land in Scotland would be stringently restricted? This is a clear instance of the deleterious impact of the Union on every single person who calls Scotland home.

It may be that not all of us would want the kind of land reform Andy Wightman advocates. It may be that there are many who simply don’t care. That’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want reform or don’t consider it important. The point is that you are deprived of the capacity to effect change regardless of whether or not you feel motivated to exercise that capacity. It is something which you own, in every sense of that term, but which has been taken from you and continues to be withheld from you because that is what the Union does. That is what it is for.

The ultimate and most fundamental purpose of the Union is to afford England-as-Britain an overwhelming advantage over Scotland in perpetuity. A purpose which cannot be pursued without affecting every single person who calls themselves Scottish. It cannot do other than make every one of us less than we should be. Less than we would be but for the Union.

When I sat down to write this article, my intention was to focus on another item from the Sunday National’s website—US campaigner warns Scotland to ‘run like the plague’ amid AI data centre boom. This is yet another example of a situation that almost certainly would not be as it is but for the Union withholding from us the capacity to effect change that is rightfully ours. Again, it doesn’t matter what your take on the “AI data centre boom“ happens to be. You have no capacity to effect change. The Union took that from you and won’t give it back. It may give something that superficially looks like the capacity to effect change through the democratic process. But at some point every attempt to exercise your capacity to effect change comes up against the constitutional device which renders your will subordinate to the will of a foreign parliament and government.

Preparing to write something inspired by the Sunday National article, I decided to do some research on the subject of digital sovereignty. I was already aware of this topic. It is very much a live issue in Europe, and at a personal level I have lately been attempting to de-Americanise my digital life. This has involved a time-consuming search for suitable European alternatives. I am far from alone. There is a huge shift underway.

Somewhat ironically, we have to thank Donald Trump for the rapid increase in awareness of the disconcerting extent to which American power intrudes on the sovereignty of other nations. This awareness has prompted a wave of action across Europe and elsewhere to secure their digital domain against intrusion by American (and Chinese) big tech. I quickly realised that researching the subject of digital sovereignty was not going to be the work of one Sunday morning. Not even if the research was limited to Europe.

Each nation and a host of organisations define digital sovereignty differently, and there is no general agreement on how the issue of securing digital sovereignty is to be approached. This, I hasten to add, is my impression from the various articles I ploughed through this morning. More promisingly, there is some suggestion that thinking on the matter may be coalescing around some basic principles. What also struck me was how much the issue of digital sovereignty parallels the constitutional issue in Scotland.

Just as technologically and economically (and militarily?) superior corporate and state powers intrude on the digital sovereignty of other nations, so the parliamentary sovereignty of England-as-Britain intrudes on Scotland’s popular sovereignty. This intrusion is forceful even when it is subtle. And it gets less and less subtle by the day.

Scotland has a particular problem in that our indigenous political elite doesn’t think in terms of securing our popular sovereignty. I find it increasingly difficult to pin down just what John Swinney and the rest have in mind when they talk of independence. It seems they are content to tolerate a level of intrusion which other nations consider intolerable.

As a Scottish nationalist, I regard all forms and levels of intrusion unendurable. The principle of the sovereignty of Scotland’s people and England-as-Britain’s doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty are entirely incompatible and irreconcilable. They cannot co-exist within one national entity. But I find it hard to believe Mr Swinney would agree. I’m fairly sure he would offer a markedly different take on the nature of sovereignty and the conflict of constitutional traditions. I’m pretty sure that he would explain his take on the matter, and that having heard his explanation, we would be no wiser about that than we are about exactly what his conception of independence is.

Read this article in The National, and you’ll understand why I coined the term ‘independence industry’. The term refers to the people and organisations which have grown on the back of Scotland’s cause, benefitting in various ways from the existence of that cause. Profiting from Scotland’s status as annexed territory.

The independence industry is that part of the independence movement which is nested comfortably within the structures, systems, and institutions of established power. It is the part of the independence movement which has been made safe. The part of the independence movement that can be tolerated. The part which can coexist with colonialism.

The independence industry is the part of the independence movement which soaks up energies and resources that might otherwise fuel a more determined effort to restore Scotland’s independence. The part which keeps a potential anti-colonial insurgency in check.

The independence industry is useful to the colonising power, as it muffles and suppresses the voice of dissent from its own toothless orthodoxies. The independence industry tells a story couched in language that does not offend the coloniser. It tells a story which helps keep the people of Scotland ignorant of their true condition.

The independence industry frames the constitutional issue from the perspective of the colonised mind. It protests the impositions and iniquities of colonialism while accepting and endorsing the superior authority of the coloniser.

The independence industry does not challenge colonialism but exists alongside it in a kind of symbiotic relationship.

The independence industry seeks to control and neutralise the more vigorous elements of the independence movement. It seeks to define and dictate the terms of acceptable discourse around the constitutional issue. It appoints itself spokesperson and gatekeeper of the independence movement. It authors the etiquette intended to govern the behaviour of pro-independence activists.

The independence industry is what an independence movement looks like when it has been tamed.

I decline to be tamed.

As regular readers will be aware, I tend to write mostly about the constitutional issue, with many of my articles being prompted by an item in The National. I’m a bit short of inspiration these days. On the constitutional issue, there is nothing to report and so nothing to comment on. Nothing is happening. It is 23 working days since the election, and the only thing that has happened is an almost totally pointless debate in the Scottish Parliament about whether to plead for a Section 30 order. MSPs voted in favour. But John Swinney didn’t even have time to write the begging letter before the plea was rejected by an anonymous Downing Street spokesperson.

We were also told to expect a draft Referendum Bill within the first 100 days of the new administration. But with the aforementioned supplication having been peremptorily refused, this would seem to be another pointless exercise. Why spend time debating legislation for a referendum which isn’t going to happen? Here is what the 100 days document promises the new SNP administration would do.

• Bring forward a vote of the Scottish Parliament, on the first sitting day after the appointment of the new government, to approve the development of a section 30 order to give Scotland the power to hold an independence referendum.

• We will publish the draft Referendum Bill with the question, as in 2014, being: ‘Should Scotland be an independent country? Yes or No.’

• Formally request the immediate transfer of powers to give the Scottish Parliament control of energy policy for Scotland, so people do not have to wait for independence to reduce energy bills.

• Convene a Constitutional Convention to help inform the Independence Referendum Bill and start to shape the draft constitution for an independent Scotland.

• Initiate discussions with the U.K. Government on the transfer of legislative power to the Scottish Parliament to hold an Independence Referendum.

The third bullet point has nothing to do with restoring independence and shouldn’t be in there. The final one is tautologous and nonsensical. It repeats the first item and there is no way the Scottish Government could “initiate discussions“ that the UK Government declined to participate in. That leaves three things we were told to expect—the vote in the Scottish Parliament has already happened, leaving only the draft Referendum Bill and the Constitutional Convention.

As I said, we can discount the draft Referendum Bill as it is contingent on the Section 30 order being granted. So, only the Constitutional Convention remains. Has anybody been approached about this yet? Is this Constitutional Convention going to be established by the Scottish Parliament? If so, where is the necessary legislation? If not, what authority could the convention have? Things have gone very quiet.

This should be the point at which Swinney reveals his ‘secret plan’. He reportedly told the SNP conference last October that "nobody knows what tactics I will deploy". I strongly suspect that includes him. There has been no discussion of an alternative to the Section 30 process within the SNP leadership. The Sturgeon doctrine holds that the Section 30 process is the only ‘legal and constitutional’ way to hold a referendum, and I know from personal experience that even to mention a possible alternative was to invite accusations of disloyalty.

Supposing John Swinney does have a ‘secret plan’, that would seem to preempt a major part of the purpose of a Constitutional Convention. It would also have to be a plan for a referendum without the UK Government’s permission. But that begs the question as to why he asked for permission if it wasn’t necessary.

By my reckoning, the first 100 days will take us to the end of September. The Scottish Parliament is in recess from 27 June to 30 August. If that is discounted as part of the 100 days, it’ll be the end of October. The clock is ticking. And I’m not seeing any indication of anything being done. Surely the constitutional issue can’t have been consigned to the back burner so soon!

I see the ever-charming Jackie Baillie has been upsetting the SNP loyalists again. Predictably, she has seized upon the Peter Murrell affair, seeking to weaponise it against John Swinney. This was quite predictable, of course. Politicians devote an inordinate amount of their well-remunerated time trying to embarrass other politicians. You may think this an inappropriate way for elected representatives to behave, but the media lap it up.

These unedifying muck-raking, mud-slinging exercises mostly take the form of witch-hunting calls for the resignation, sacking, or demotion of whichever unfortunate individual has been selected as prey. Alternatively, there may be demands for an inquiry into this or that. It is this variation which Jackie Baillie is playing as she insists there should be a public inquiry into the matter of Peter Murrell embezzling approximately £400,000 of the SNP’s money.

You can see why this business would tickle Baillie’s British fancy. Murrell was married to former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and appointed as the party’s CEO by present First Minister John Swinney. Those are two very juicy targets. The British parties squatting in Scotland’s parliament were never going to pass up an opportunity like this, and Jackie Baillie set about her task with evident relish.

Questions are piling up about the circumstances surrounding Peter Murrell’s crime spree and with public money potentially misused, John Swinney’s ‘nothing to see here’ act is becoming increasingly untenable.

This is a matter of trust and integrity in politics and public life.

If John Swinney has nothing to hide, he should welcome the chance to get answers on this sordid affair – but for some reason he is determined to try and dodge scrutiny.

The SNP should have led the way setting up this inquiry, but instead it falls to Parliament to demand the truth.

Scotland deserves answers and I hope on Wednesday MSPs across the chamber will back transparency over cover-up by voting for Scottish Labour’s motion.

I’ve quoted Jackie Baillie at length here because this is Olympics-level smearing. There is so much more suggested than said, and even positive words such as ‘trust’ and ‘integrity’ come out sounding like denunciations. When she speaks of “transparency”, it is to suggest that there is none. Murrell’s caper becomes a “crime spree” involving misuse of “public money” (“potentially”!). Swinney is trying to “dodge scrutiny”.

Note too how Baillie co-opts the whole of Scotland as well as the entire Scottish Parliament. This is truly artful stuff. Nasty without being reprehensible. I feel she deserves an award of some kind. Does Greggs do gift vouchers?

We might wonder what would be the purpose of the inquiry Jackie Baillie is demanding. Other than embarrassing opponents, that is. There was a police investigation, after all. That investigation failed to uncover the whereabouts of £600,000 ring-fenced fund, but it got Murrell as a consolation prize. Does Jackie Baillie think a public inquiry might do better?

Naturally, John Swinney would dearly like to put the whole matter behind him. He wants us to move on. Public inquiry or not, this is unlikely to happen. Questions about that ring-fenced money have not yet had satisfactory answers. It may be that there are no satisfactory answers. It is certainly the case that there are people who would not be satisfied with any answer. The Murrell affair looks like it’s set to haunt the SNP for a long time.

All Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is doing with his latest ‘initiative’ is perpetuating the misconception that it is Westminster which is the obstacle as well as the fallacy that a Section 30 referendum can lead to the restoration of Scotland’s independence. It is certainly no coincidence that these two pieces of falsity are very helpful to John Swinney. It suits the SNP leadership very well that the finger of blame for lack of any progress on the constitutional issue is kept pointed at Westminster. So long as these myths persist, the SNP can continue to use the vote-winning properties of Scotland’s cause for electioneering purposes.

John Swinney desperately needs all the help he can get from Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp with crucial by-elections in Aberdeen South and Arbroath & Broughty Ferry only ten campaigning days away. For the SNP, these by-elections are the downside to victory in the recent Holyrood election for Stephen Flynn and Stephen Gethins respectively. Also looming are a pair of council by-elections on 3 September in Edinburgh following the resignations of two SNP councillors – Simita Kumar (Southside/Newington) and Kate Campbell (Portobello/Craigmillar), both of whom were also returned as MSPs in May’s Scottish Parliament election.

Significantly, all four of these by-elections fall within the first 100 days of John Swinney’s new administration. Defeat in any of these by-elections would be embarrassing for the SNP leader. Defeat in all or even most of them could trigger a leadership challenge by Stephen Flynn at the SNP’s annual conference in mid-October.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp’s latest marketing wheeze will be regarded as a godsend by the SNP leadership as the rumble of discontent within the party and across the independence movement looks ready to turn into a roar of anger. By the time the conference rolls around, even the less blinkered of the SNP loyalists will be starting to realise that all we’ve got from the Holyrood election is another five wasted years. I know we say this before every SNP conference, but there could be some turmoil in Aberdeen.

It may be relevant that one of the Edinburgh City Council by-elections is in the Southside/Newington ward. Readers may recall that it was the Newington & Southside branch of the SNP which submitted a ‘rebel’ resolution to the 2025 conference which posed a real threat to the leadership clique and so was excluded. The final paragraph of what came to be known as the Newington Resolution should suffice to explain the fear.

Therefore, Conference agrees that the SNP shall put in their manifesto for the 2026 Scottish Parliament election that if a majority of SNP and other pro-independence MSP’s are returned to Holyrood in 2026, they will bring forward a bill to assume responsibility for constitutional affairs as directed by the people of Scotland. This will include the right to hold referendums on increased powers and independence—driven by the will of the people.

Should the SNP lose that seat, it is not unreasonable to suppose that there might be another awkward resolution submitted by the Newington & Southside branch this year. That’s the kind of thing John Swinney can well do without.

Swinney may be averse to any questioning of the SNP’s approach to the constitutional issue, but Scotland’s cause urgently needs a challenge to the orthodoxy which concedes sovereignty to Westminster. Next to the SNP, Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp’s Believe in Scotland (BiS) organisation is the biggest part of the independence industry. Both concede sovereignty to Westminster.

People must be made aware that when they vote for the SNP they are voting to deny the principle that the people of Scotland are sovereign. When people participate in BiS initiatives, as well as helping to promulgate the idea that Westminster is the obstacle to Scotland’s cause, they are colluding with a framing of the constitutional issue which places Westminster above the people of Scotland.

Of course, Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp will deny this. But he is condemned by his own words as quoted in The National:

At the Scottish Election on May 7, the Scottish people elected a record pro-independence majority.

Those 73 MSPs have a democratic mandate to demand an independence referendum. In simple terms that means that the Scottish people voted for a referendum – so the Scottish people should damn well get a referendum.

In that short quote, Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp twice acknowledges that the people of Scotland have unambiguously expressed their democratic will that there must be another independence referendum. If he adhered to the principle that the people of Scotland are sovereign, he would see this as the end of the matter. If the people are sovereign and the people have spoken, then that is the end of the matter. All that is left is for the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament to abide by the principle and act in accordance with the mandate. But according to both Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp and John Swinney the will of Scotland’s people is insufficient. Both accede to the alien doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Both acquiesce to the British state’s asserted authority to veto the will of Scotland’s people.

I find this unacceptable. I hold the sovereignty of Scotland’s people to be both a constitutional fact and an abiding principle underpinning our distinct political culture and our identity as a nation. I decline to participate in a campaign based on the idea that the people of Scotland and the parliament we elect are subordinate to a British regime which I detest and a British parliament in which Scotland has only token representation.

According to the cursory research I thought the matter merited, the practice of attaching special significance to the first 100 days of a new government began with Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term as President of the United States of America in 1933. This is the period during which the new administration is expected to set the tone for the next four or five years by establishing the priorities and setting out the vision. It is also the period in which the new government’s relationship with the public is formed. And, of course, the time when policies are implemented, reforms introduced, and initiatives launched.

Counting from when John Swinney officially assumed office as First Minister on Friday 8 May, the first 100 days takes us to Sunday 16 August 2026, or Monday 28 September 2026 if we exclude weekends and public holidays. Being a generous soul, I’ll use the later date. I realise that others may count differently, and I really don’t care. It’s a very loose 100 days. John Swinney’s 100 days will be up on Monday 28 September of this year.

Ahead of the election, John Swinney declared what he intended to achieve in the first 100 days of his government. If you want to know everything that he promised he’d do before Monday 28 September, you can read a transcript of the speech on the SNP website. As ever, my focus is on the constitutional issue. This is the relevant portion of the speech (emphasis added):

So I can confirm today that on the first sitting day after the appointment of the new government, we will bring forward a vote of the Scottish Parliament to approve the development of a Section 30 to give Scotland the power to hold an independence referendum.

The parliament chosen by the people of Scotland will have the chance to represent the democratic will of the people of Scotland.

Within the first hundred days, we will publish the draft Referendum Bill.

We propose that the question, as in 2014, is: ‘Should Scotland be an independent country? Yes or No.’

On Tuesday 26 May the Scottish Parliament debated a motion submitted in the name of John Swinney and titled Ambitious for Scotland. The motion passed by 72 votes to 55 after the SNP backed an amendment by the Scottish Greens. Below is the full text of the motion as amended. (emphasis added)

That the Parliament welcomes the emphatic democratic mandate for bold and ambitious reform backed by the people of Scotland at the Scottish General Election; further welcomes the Scottish Government’s clear commitment to eradicate child poverty, deliver a stronger NHS and public services, build a more prosperous economy and help people in the cost of living crisis and tackle climate change; recognises that the people of Scotland have returned the largest pro-independence majority ever elected to the Scottish Parliament; believes this majority affirms a clear mandate that decisions about Scotland’s future are best taken in Scotland and that mandate must be respected; calls on the UK Government to make a Section 30 order under the Scotland Act 1998 to devolve the powers to the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum on Scottish independence; agrees that the Parliament is at its best when it works together in pursuit of a country that can be confident in its future; believes that the most effective way in which to grow public support for Scottish independence and to meet the scale of the challenges currently facing Scotland is through more effective use of existing devolved powers; recognises that meeting the Scottish Government’s stated ambitions will require a significant escalation in action and ambition; notes that no one party holds a majority in the current parliamentary session, but that there is a clear majority for progressive values, and agrees that, if all progressive parties work constructively and collaboratively, Scotland can be a fairer, greener and kinder country where household costs are reduced, where wealth is distributed more equally and where climate and natural environment are protected.

The first thing I noticed about this motion was what seemed to be a discrepancy between it and what was promised in the speech referred to earlier. In that speech, John Swinney said he would bring forward “a vote of the Scottish Parliament to approve the development of a Section 30 [order]”. I was surely not the only person who took this to mean that the Section 30 order was to be drafted by the Scottish Government. The motion passed by the Scottish Parliament, however, “calls on the UK Government to make a Section 30 order under the Scotland Act 1998”.

At first glance, this looked like Swinney rolling back from what he had promised. On reflection, however, I now think that the speech was just clumsily worded. An impression supported by the omission of the word ‘order’. One might be forgiven for thinking of this clumsiness as indicating the level of importance John Swinney attached to this announcement. Time will tell.

The motion was little more than a bit of political theatre. MSPs were asked to vote for something the Scottish Government cannot deliver. Granted, a request for a Section 30 order submitted in the name of the entire Scottish Parliament might carry more weight than a request made by the First Minister alone. But since the latter carries no weight at all, the former needn’t weigh more than a midge’s fart.

Either way, the request was always going to be rebuffed. As if to confirm his contempt for the parliament elected by the people of Scotland, Starmer didn’t bother getting out of bed to respond on behalf of the parliament elected by the people of England. Instead, he delegated the job of contemptuous dismissal to some unnamed Downing Street lackey:

The UK Government does not support independence or another referendum.

People need and want their governments focused on the issues that really matter - economic growth, the cost of living, and public services. Our focus must be on delivery, not division.

What more did Swinney expect? Well, presenting his Ambitious for Scotland motion at Holyrood, Swinney said (emphasis added):

Today is the start of a process that I believe will lead Westminster to a yes to a referendum, and Scotland to a yes to independence.

Today I seek confirmation from this parliament that this is a voluntary union, and the people of Scotland have the right to decide whether we remain in that union. That is a principle that should be accepted by all those in this chamber who support independence but also those who believe in the union, because what is at stake is the democratic wishes of Scotland.

If he was telling the truth, Swinney genuinely expected that the British state would buckle under the weight of a vote in the Scottish Parliament. I’ll wager he is the only person in Scotland who believed this. There are people who believe Elvis is alive and driving a Routemaster bus on the Moon who scoff mightily at the notion of the British Prime Minister agreeing to another referendum.

His 100 days aren’t up yet. Guess what! We’re waiting again! This time we’re waiting for the outcome of face-to-face talks between Swinney and Starmer sometime this month. But it appears the two governments can’t even agree on the subject of the talks. A Scottish Government spokesperson said (emphasis added):

It is particularly welcome that the Prime Minister agreed to meet next month to discuss a referendum on independence,” the Scottish Government spokesperson said.

Given the SNP’s landslide victory and the fact that the people of Scotland have elected more pro-independence MSPs than at any point in the Parliament’s history, the previous refusal of the UK Government to consider Scotland’s right to decide its own future was clearly unsustainable.

Really!? Let’s just check that. Here’s a spokesperson for the UK Government (emphasis added):

The Prime Minister committed to meeting to discuss shared issues, including the cost of living,” the No 10 spokesperson said.

As the Prime Minister told the First Minister, the manifesto this government was elected on was unambiguous that ‘Labour does not support independence or another referendum’.

Our position remains unchanged.

That sounds more like the British state’s customary attitude! There seems to be no reason to think John Swinney will be the one leaving the meeting with a cheesy grin on his face. Time will tell!

By my calculation, Swinney has 82 working days remaining of his first 100 days. He has promised a draft Referendum Bill within this time period. He has also guaranteed that he will deliver a referendum. As The National reported:

Asked by ITV in an interview at Bute House whether he could guarantee a majority will lead to a referendum, Swinney said: “Yes, because that’s what happened in 2011.

I reckon there’s one helluva lot of small print on that guarantee. This has to rank among the most stupid things said by any politician ever. As soon as he heard the word ‘guarantee’, Swinney should have been on his guard. But he just blurted out his answer without thinking. The bit about the 2011 election was tacked on in an attempt to prop up that guarantee. It doesn’t work. It only makes the response look even more stupid.

It is safe to assume that we’ll get to that 100-day mark, and to borrow a phrase from that Downing Street spokesperson, our position remains unchanged. In other words, there is no prospect of any progress for Scotland’s cause in the next five years. Exactly as predicted. Can we expect an apology from John Swinney or any of the people who castigated those who said all we’d get from the election was another five wasted years?

Would it be a resigning matter? Two weeks after the 28 September deadline, delegates gather in Aberdeen for the SNP Annual National Conference. Will we see the membership finally growing spine enough to rebel against the leadership? It has become a tradition to anticipate such a rebellion at every SNP conference. So far, we’ve always been disappointed. What will it take to spark a revolt?

Will this be the last straw for the SNP loyalists and apologists? Time will tell.

While I am familiar with the weariness Lesley Riddoch feels. I don’t imagine an inquiry into the SNP’s financial management would make me feel any less disheartened. I can’t think of anything the SNP leadership might do to regain my trust. The time for repair is past. Too much damage has been done. As Lesley says:

Will things change in the years ahead? I hae ma doots.

Aye! Me tae! It’s not just weariness I feel. There’s hopelessness as well. Looking back, it’s possible to see things that might have been done. As Lesley says:

But it didn’t happen.

Looking to the future, it’s less easy to see what could be done. Supposing there was something, as Lesley says:

But it likely won’t happen.

I shall shortly be joined in my weariness and hopelessness by the many people who voted for the SNP back in May because they believed John Swinney when he talked of guaranteeing a referendum and immediate action to progress Scotland’s cause in the new parliament. As the months drag on with no sign of the promises being honoured, more and more people will realise they were duped. There will be a lot of resentment.

Robin McAlpine seems to be as devoid of hope for the SNP as I am.

I have no advice anymore. It is too late. What will come will come and it isn’t entirely certain the SNP will remain a credible fighting force at the end of it. Sturgeon poisoned the SNP. Swinney refused to drive it to the doctor. It may be their political epitaphs.

It no longer makes sense to ask what the SNP should do. It only makes sense to ask what they should have done. Last week, when Robin was still offering advice to the SNP, he told John Swinney that he should “put clear water between him and the Sturgeon era (best as he could)“. That was sound counsel. Robin is spot on when he says that Nicola Sturgeon has “poisoned the SNP”. It would have been good if Swinney had been able to flush that poison away. It would not have been easy. The toxin is everywhere. I can understand why John Swinney might be reluctant to face the wrath of the personality cult that still surrounds Sturgeon and shows no sign of abating.

Swinney was never the man for that job. One way he could have distanced himself very effectively from Sturgeon would have been to repudiate the Section 30 process that she dubbed the ‘gold standard’ of democracy. There would have been some backlash from the Sturgeon cult. But he would have won a lot of support from the independence movement. Even I might have considered rejoining the SNP if John Swinney had signalled that he was open to suggestions as to how Scotland’s cause could be progressed.

Rather than closing the book on the Sturgeon era, however, Swinney made it the user manual for his incumbency. It’s like she never went away. Swinney has not had a single new idea since he became First Minister. His ‘strategy for independence’ was simply a rerun of 2014, and now that he’s been told he’s not getting a Section 30 order, he’s lost.

Robin McAlpine thinks Swinney’s days as FM may be numbered. I’m not sure about that. Although I’m sure Stephen Flynn has his eye on the job. Might he be the one to exorcise Sturgeon’s baleful ghost? As Lesley Riddoch might say, I hae ma doots!

Tommy Sheppard’s mea culpa on behalf of the SNP in today’s National will probably have the desired effect of clearing the air. At the very least, it will give party loyalists something to wave in the faces of those who remain sceptical about promises to remake and renew the party. Former SNP members such as myself, however, will read Sheppard’s column with a discomfitting sense of déjà vu. We’ve heard it all before.

The feeling of déjà vu will not be confined to ex-members of the SNP. We’ve probably all experienced or witnessed similar exercises in corporate soul-rinsing in our working lives or as members of this or that organisation struck by revelations of wrongdoing. When denial is no longer an option, full and frank confession combined with the promise of a reset will often be deployed in the hope that this will flush the stubborn turd. The more full and frank the confession can be made to seem, and the more sincere the penitence, the more effective the exercise will be in wiping the slate clean. Professional politicians tend to be adept at appearing open and honest. Appearances can be deceptive.

There’s a snag. Isn’t there always? The confession may be used to wipe from the slate things not covered by the promised reforms. Sheppard writes:

The SNP have to be the political movement for Scotland’s national independence; there is no point to it otherwise.

Even if the remorse is totally genuine and the promised reforms are delivered in full, we would do well to wonder what has been left out. Will a shake-up of internal structures and procedures make the SNP “the political movement for Scotland’s national independence”?

I don’t think it will. It certainly isn’t enough to persuade me that the SNP is once again the ‘party of independence’. The role of the party-political and parliamentary arm of Scotland’s independence movement demands more than just unimpeachable internal governance. To be a candidate for that role, the party would need to convince me it had a clear and credible plan for restoring Scotland’s independence. I don’t see that in Tommy Sheppard’s column.

No doubt I will be told I must wait and see whether the “democratic renewal of [the SNP’s] structure” urged by Sheppard actually materialises. Then I will be told I must wait and see what emerges in terms of policy and strategy once the reforms take effect. In the meantime, I will be told I must not criticise the party in any way. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m extremely tired of waiting. And weary of being told to ‘wheesht for indy’.

The problem the SNP has is common to all political parties. When trust is lost, promises to be more worthy in the future sound very hollow.

Tommy Sheppard’s column will convince only the people who didn’t need to be convinced and the very credulous ones. The party faithful will point to his column and say, “Look! Everything has been fixed. Why are you still complaining?”

I’m complaining because I’m paying attention.

I awoke this morning feeling a bit unwell. Nothing serious, I’m sure. Just a bit of nausea induced by spending rather too much of my Sunday exposed to the waves of pious self-pity emanating from Nicola Sturgeon and the soapy special pleading of the sycophantic apologists who remain inexplicably spellbound by this seriously flawed individual.

Monday looks like being no less blighted by her omnipresence. The National is wall-to-wall Sturgeon, and I expect the rest of the media are much the same as they seek to get as much mileage as possible out of her appearance on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg programme. I did not watch it. I have reached the stage where I can’t abide the sound of her voice. And Sturgeon is even worse!

Despite not having watched the performance, I ended the day yesterday feeling as if it had been playing on a loop in my head the entire time. It’s tempting to say I don’t understand why people continue to be so besotted with Nicola Sturgeon, but in fact I understand it quite well, having once been an admirer. I was never in any danger of being embroiled with the personality cult that surrounds Sturgeon. But I know what draws people to her, having fallen partially under her sway back when she was Alex Salmond’s sidekick.

I use the word ‘performance’ advisedly. Because that’s precisely what it is. Sturgeon is widely acknowledged to be a superb communicator. We were left in no doubt of this during the pandemic when, better than any other politician I’m aware of, Sturgeon took the public with her as she introduced what were of necessity some quite Draconian restrictions. Sturgeon’s daily media appearances were a masterclass in techniques of persuasion. She got people to trust her. I hesitate to say she won that trust because with hindsight it now feels more as if she stole it.

There is a fine line between being a very skilled communicator and being an equally proficient manipulator. I don’t recall a moment when my opinion of Sturgeon changed. It certainly wasn’t an overnight thing. I was aware of various missteps on her part, such as campaigning to overturn the EU Leave vote in 2016 rather than leverage the discrepancy between what we voted for and what we got to progress Scotland’s cause. I was inclined to forgive these errors on the grounds that they were outweighed by the potential she had to use her skills to our advantage in other ways. So, I have some understanding of what motivates her apologists now. I’m just baffled that they continue to give her the benefit of a doubt that no longer exists.

At some point it began to dawn on me that Sturgeon was driven more by personal ambition than by aspirations for Scotland. The scales fell from my eyes. It’s a story that will, I’m sure, be familiar to many of those who read this.

The danger when one begins to revise one’s opinion of someone who has disappointed us is that your take on that person can tip too far into the negative. A kind of overcompensation can very easily occur. I witnessed many instances of this over the years as former admirers of Nicola Sturgeon began to exhibit a virulent hatred of her. It’s just one more example of the polarisation that is rife throughout our politics. I know I didn’t fall prey to this tendency. I also know how easily I might have. I have some understanding of the ‘haters’, just as I have of the people who continue to be infatuated with her.

Hatred isn’t necessarily wrong. There are many things in this world that deserve to be hated. But hate isn’t a complete explanation in itself. One of the things I encountered in my sojourn among the denizens of The Sunday National’s comments section was people dismissing criticism of Sturgeon by labelling it ‘hate’. But hate doesn’t materialise in a vacuum. It is occasioned by something. It doesn’t matter whether you think the something to be real or a sufficient cause for hate; there must be something. If you are throwing the hate-word at someone, you must have in mind what might motivate such a powerful emotion. If you don’t, then the term becomes meaningless. A vacuous jibe.

I tried asking some of those who were tossing the word ‘hate’ around what they supposed might have prompted the feeling. None were able or willing to say. Which suggests they were merely using the word in an effort to shut down criticism of Sturgeon.

I can think of numerous fact-based reasons for hating Nicola Sturgeon if that is your inclination. The treatment of Alex Salmond, to cite just one example. I don’t personally feel this way. But I can say what might form a basis for such hatred. None of those I asked were able to suggest anything. They were just using the word to imply that those criticising Sturgeon are being irrational.

Why does any of this matter? It matters, I think, because the adoration of Sturgeon is part of a general malaise in the independence movement. It has become all but impossible to discuss where things have gone wrong and how they might be rectified. Every attempt to have such a discussion quickly descends into a sniping war between the SNP loyalists and the SNP haters.

It matters because I see no possibility of this situation changing. Somebody responded to a comment I posted on Bluesky remarking on Sturgeon’s portrayal of herself as the victim in the Murrell affair, saying that lessons had been learnt and we should just move on. But there is no indication whatever that any lessons have been learnt. It is difficult to move on because there is so much unfinished business. So many unanswered questions. So much unacknowledged culpability.

I wish I could say I felt better for writing this. I don’t. When I say that Sturgeon has been the ruination of the SNP and the bane of the independence movement, I am not doing so from hatred. I am simply acknowledging what I regard as a fact. I regard it as a fact for reasons that I can easily explain by citing other facts.

There is no end in sight because it is not only a few party loyalists on social media who are in blank denial of these facts. The denial goes all the way to the top of the party. Nobody is fixing the things that are wrong because the imperative is not to get these things fixed but to paint over them. Pretty soon, paint is all there is. Everything beneath has rotted away.

Pete Wishart proudly boasts that he is the longest currently serving Scottish National Party MP and the longest serving of all time. He was first elected in 2001. That means he’s been representing the ‘party of independence’ in the English parliament for 25 years—covering all but the first year or two of the reconvened Scottish Parliament, where the SNP has been the dominant party for almost two decades.

Count the days! Every day that Scotland remains under the heel of the Union is a day that the SNP has failed. Pete Wishart has 25 years’ worth of failed days. The SNP in the Scottish Parliament has 20 years’ worth of failed days. If we tally the days spent in elected office by every SNP politician over the period that Pete Wishart has spent polishing the green benches with his arse, it would run to many thousands of days, every one of which can be counted as a day that the SNP has failed Scotland’s cause.

This is the point where somebody shouts, “Baby boxes!”, and starts to rattle off a memorised list of all the things that the SNP can claim as successes. I don’t dispute this. I do not deny that SNP governments have benefited Scotland over the years. I’ll happily give them that. I’ll even allow that Pete Wishart did some good work as chair of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. But Scotland continues to suffer under the heel of a grotesquely asymmetric political union. So, in terms of the SNP’s principal aim, they have failed.

In this regard, they continue to fail. An honest and objective appraisal would conclude that we are no closer to the restoration of independence now than we were when Pete Wishart was first elected a quarter of a century ago. Whatever else the SNP may have done, they have failed in the main task for which we elected them. We, the independence movement and the Scottish electorate, gave the SNP extraordinary power in the expectation that they would use it to restore Scotland’s rightful status as an independent nation. They have failed.

That they have failed cannot be denied. Which won’t prevent party loyalists from trying to do so. Not only are we still held in murderous Britannia’s cold and jealous grasp, we seem destined to suffer this increasingly deleterious condition for the foreseeable future. Which, I hasten to point out, is merely a figure of speech and should not be taken as meaning the future can be known. But we can deduce where certain trends will lead if they are permitted to continue. To date, the trend has been more failed days. As I write, I find no reason to suppose that this trend will not continue.

In an https://peterabell.substack.com/p/swinneys-big-secret-plan, I referred to the interview John Swinney gave exclusively to The National in which he was expected to reveal his ‘Big Secret Plan’ for progressing Scotland’s cause after his plea for a Section 30 order was contemptuously snubbed by some faceless Downing Street spokesbladder. What he revealed is that he has no plan, other than doing more of what has failed for long enough that any sensible person would long ago have thought to try something else.

As many of us anticipated, the SNP have no intention of doing what is required, supposing they even know what that is. As predicted by me and many others, yet another opportunity has been squandered in the election just past, and we are looking at another five lost years. Unless we do something about it.

By ‘we’ I mean the independence movement, as opposed to the independence industry which has grown up around the SNP and which largely follows the SNP’s agenda. For all the talk of ‘unity’ in the independence movement, nothing whatever has been achieved in that regard. The reason is plain enough to see. And yet the independence movement itself seems oblivious to it. All previous and current efforts to unite the independence movement have taken unity to mean all gathered together under a single umbrella group.

This ‘unity as amalgamation’ approach was never going to work if for no other reason than that all the factions want unity on their own terms, and none of them are prepared to have their identity subsumed in some umbrella organisation. Every faction thinks itself unique and wants its own voice to be heard, promulgating its own message. Just as importantly, these factions are understandably reluctant to be associated with things that might be said by one or more of the groups under the umbrella.

Unity as an amalgamation was never going to work. Trying to force all the factions together was never going to create a stable entity. A better approach would be to try and attract all these factions to the one place. Unity of purpose means that all the factions keep their discrete identities and their own voice, promulgating their own message. They are not being asked to reach out and hold hands with one another. They are asked to all reach out and take hold of the same purpose.

Now, all we need is that purpose. It has to be something which can be done without much expense or effort. It must be very clearly defined and very narrow so that everybody understands it in the same way. It must have an endpoint and a definition of success.

With all of this in mind, I would like to revive the idea of a campaign to repurpose ballots in the next UK general election, the date of which could be any time between now and 15 August 2029. Although that date is not yet fixed, we know it will be. So, we have our endpoint. Success will be defined by the percentage of ballots reported by the Returning Officer as spoilt by having #EndTheUnion scrawled across them.

Normally, only one or two percent of ballots are spoilt. If a ‘repurpose your ballot’ campaign does no more than increase that to 5%—the level at which candidates save their deposits—that would count as success. A similar campaign in the 2025 Irish presidential election got the level up to 13% and, in so doing, became the big talking point, overshadowing even the winner’s celebrations. I reckon we can make 15%. That would rock the boat very nicely.

One reason I feel confident that a ‘repurpose your ballot’ (RYB) campaign could reach 15% or more is the fact that it appeals to non-voters. Almost half the electorate didn’t bother to vote in the Holyrood election just past. That’s approximately the same proportion as the divide on the constitutional issue. So, without the slightest hint of statistical propriety, we shall estimate that half of those non-voters are pro-independence voters who for one reason or another just could not be arsed. A fair few of them might have made the effort if there was an option they liked. #EndTheUnion is a DIY extra option on the ballot paper.

Obviously, I’ll be writing more about this over the coming weeks. Some of you may remember that I did a campaign like this for the 2024 UK election. It didn’t have anything like the uptake that would make it effective. So, let’s call that a practice run. The website for the 2024 campaign is still there, and I’m trying to get in touch with the guy who holds the domain to see what we can do about updating it. But I think he may be a bit displeased with me for reasons which are perfectly understandable. I may need a ‘plan B’. Watch this space!

So, now we know! First Minister of Scotland John Swinney has at last unveiled his Big Secret Plan to hold a referendum on independence. In an exclusive interview by The National’s Steph Brawn, he revealed how he intends to address the constitutional issue now that his election strategy has failed and his supplication to the British Prime Minister was contemptuously dismissed. by some anonymous Downing Street lackey.

We now know what he has in mind. Not much!

The only impressive thing about Swinney’s Big Secret Plan reveal is the number of words he used to tell us he has no plan. That was the secret. The fact that he has no plan was what he wanted to conceal. The ‘Big’ part of the Big Secret Plan was fulfilled by the meandering bloviation of his replies to Steph Brawn’s questions.

Credit where it’s due! He’s good at what he does. What he does is look very active while doing nothing very much and talk a lot while saying nothing at all. The following extract will serve to illustrate his technique.

“I think what’s important is we don’t in any way shape or form let the UK Government off the hook,” said the First Minister.

“I’m very much aware of the swiftness with which the UK Government issued the response, but that is not acceptable. It’s not acceptable for the democratic wishes of the people of Scotland, either expressed in the election and then democratically by the parliament, to just be dismissed in such a casual fashion.

“So, before we just resign ourselves to the fact the UK Government is taking up this stance, we have to argue and press that case for Scotland to be able to decide our own future and that’s what I intend to do going forward.”

Pressed on what plan he has in mind if Starmer still does not budge on handing over powers for a referendum, Swinney said there needed to be a build-up of pressure on the UK Government from a grassroots movement.

“We’ve got to make it impossible for the UK Government to refuse the ability of Scottish Parliament to legislate on this question,” said Swinney.

“So there’s a whole host of things that have got to be done which will build up and strengthen that voice within Scotland about what needs to be done to make sure Scotland can control our own future.

If you’ve read that extract, you know all there is to know about Swinney’s Big Secret Plan. You won’t know very much. Because there’s not much to know. The best thinkers in the SNP leadership have come together and thrashed out a strategy which can be summed up in one sentence. Keep doing what we’ve been doing for the past 11+ years with nothing to show for it. If we wanted to pad it out, we might add a bit about how he subtly shifts blame for the lack of progress onto pro-independence activists. He doesn’t say so in so many words, but the subtext is there for those with an ear for such things. Here’s an example.

Swinney said part of that build-up of pressure will be working to create “cohesion” within the Yes movement, adding: “This has got to be a grassroots movement that forces the UK Government to enable Scotland to decide on her own future.”

The first thing to strike me about this—and there’s a lot more in the same vein—is the hypocrisy. Cast your mind back but a couple of weeks, and you may recall that Swinney showed little interest in “cohesion”. You’ll remember his ‘SNP only’ election strategy. Think back further and you’ll find that this attitude has prevailed within the SNP leadership bubble since 2015. When Swinney talks of “cohesion”, he means stick with him and his party. Don’t scrutinise or criticise him or his party. Just keep on voting for them while never mentioning their perfect record of failing Scotland’s cause.

Always we are told it’s all Westminster’s fault. By constantly pointing the finger of blame at the UK government and the British political parties, Swinney hopes we won’t look closer to home to find who is culpable. And it works! It is baffling how many people are taken in by this clumsy blame-shifting. By keeping Westminster at the centre of the constitutional issue, the independence industry ensures that they remain untroubled by those proposing a reframing of the issue which puts the people of Scotland at the centre, where they belong, and turns attention from Westminster and Downing Street to Holyrood and Bute House.

There is a kernel of truth in what John Swinney says. All the best political dishonesty has within it a small portion of truth which the skilled political operator will stretch to cover the lies. The truth in what Swinney says is that there is an urgent need for the independence movement to rediscover the knowledge of how to combine. As the French diplomat, political philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville reminds us:

In democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

Let’s have less talk of ‘unity’ and more talk of collaboration. cooperation and coaction. Let’s start by recognising that when John Swinney talks of “cohesion”, what he has in mind is making Scotland’s cause the exclusive province of the SNP. For decades, the SNP was ‘the party of independence’. The SNP and the independence movement were pretty much one and the same right up to the rise of the Yes movement in the period prior to the 2014 referendum-like thing. That was when people realised that it was possible to be non-SNP but pro-independence and acted on that new realisation by forming groups and organisations that were pro-independence but quite separate from the SNP.

Nicola Sturgeon saw this and immediately set about trying to co-opt and control these non-SNP elements while also suppressing the voice of dissent within the party. In the latter effort, she was very successful. In the former, maybe not so much. But looking back we can see how she secured Yes as an SNP brand, bastardising the logo in the process.

No! This is not turning into yet another rant about Sturgeon. I wish only to illuminate how the SNP and the independence movement parted company after the 2014 referendum. The bit that fell under the sway of the clique which had hijacked the SNP became what I refer to as the independence industry. The rest make up the independence movement. But the independence movement has yet to develop an identity and a voice. And that is what is required if the voice of dissent is to be heard. There must be a countervailing force to challenge the prevailing force of the independence industry.

The independence movement must develop unity of purpose. And for that to happen, there must be a purpose. John Swinney would very much like that purpose to be keeping him in his job and his party in power. This dissenting voice says a resounding no to that. This proud malcontent would be very happy to give Mr Swinney the support he thinks he’s entitled to if he looked remotely like he had a strategy which would progress Scotland’s cause. As the interview referred to at the top of this article has made plain, he has no such strategy. The Big Secret Plan is revealed to be a myth. In fact, a downright lie!

I have thoughts as to how we might develop unity of purpose within the independence movement so that it can become the countervailing force that says the things Swinney won’t say and does the things the SNP won’t do. This article is overlong already, however, so I’ll write another one on the subject of how we rediscover the knowledge of how to combine that has sadly been all but obliterated by factionalism. I’ll get to that other article just as soon as I’ve hung up the washing.

In what was surely the least unexpected development of all time, the British state accepts John Swinney’s invitation to spit in Scotland’s face. The only noteworthy thing about the UK government’s reaction to the exercise in futility that occupied the Scottish Parliament for a full day yesterday is how promptly the response was issued. Lest we imagined this to betoken some scintilla of respect, however, that response came not from the British Prime Minister himself but from some anonymous spokesbladder in Downing Street.

Let’s be clear! The show at Holyrood yesterday had nothing whatever to do with progressing Scotland’s cause. It was all just a circus, with Holyrood turned into the big top for the day and John Swinney as the ringmaster. It was a performance. A meaningless, pointless, vacuous bit of political theatre that achieved precisely nothing. Nothing, that is, other than the distraction Swinney wanted. The sole purpose of the thing was to dupe people into directing their outrage at the UK government in the hope that they wouldn’t notice that it is Swinney himself who is the villain of the piece.

One reply to my condemnation of Swinney’s circus trotted out the old line about the need to ‘jump through certain hoops’ as part of the process of restoring Scotland’s independence. My response was to point out that it is only those whose minds are totally colonised who think it necessary to jump through these hoops. And besides, the British state has an unlimited supply of hoops. As soon as you think you’re getting to the last one, they’ll just manufacture a few more.

As I write, there has been no response to the UK government’s casual dismissal of the call for a Section 30 order from the Scottish Government. No doubt when it comes, it will be couched in suitably scandalised language. What would be surprising is if there is any indication of what Swinney plans to do next. He must surely have planned for this slap-down. It was always the case that the UK government would use the veto over the will of Scotland’s people, which was just validated by the Scottish Parliament. Why wouldn’t they? It’s not at all clear what Swinney can do now that he has formally accepted the British state’s control of access to the exercise of our right of self-determination. He can hardly say that the British state’s consent is not required when he has just accepted that it is required. If consent is not required, why would it be requested?

My suspicion—or perhaps something stronger—is that when Swinney does make a statement, it will not be about how he intends to progress Scotland’s cause. The statement will mark the start of the SNP’s campaign for the next UK general election. Once again we’ll be told that we must vote SNP to ‘send a message to Westminster’. It really doesn’t matter what he says; the party loyalists will greet it as the wise words of a brilliant political strategist. As will The National. The show must go on. And on. And on. And . . .

John Swinney is the de facto head of the Scottish independence movement. But he cannot speak for that movement because his first loyalty is not to Scotland’s cause but to his party. If the independence movement wants to be heard, it will have to find its own voice. It will have to speak for itself. It will have to speak loudly and clearly when it says enough! There is a way of doing this.

The next United Kingdom general election is scheduled to be held no later than 15 August 2029. Of course, it will have to be announced at least six weeks in advance. In practice, it could come at any time in the next 24 to 30 months. And as is customary, campaigning will get underway a year or more before the announcement of a date. Which means the independence movement must start to prepare now!

I propose to launch a ‘repurpose your ballot’ campaign as soon as possible. I will ask that everyone who wants independence write #EndTheUnion across their ballot paper for the next Westminster election. The aim will be to outdo a similar campaign in last year’s Irish presidential election.

A record number of people have spoiled their vote in the presidential election, with close to 13 per cent of the total ballot deemed invalid.

There were 213,738 invalid votes, the highest number in a modern Irish election, as many voters expressed anger and frustration at the choice of candidates on the ballot and the exclusion of others.

At the last 2018 presidential election, spoiled votes totalled 18,438, accounting for 1.2 per cent of the total vote in that election.

Just more than 1 per cent of votes were spoiled in the 2011 presidential election.

If 10 to 15 per cent of ballots are spoilt in the same way, this sends a clear message not only to Westminster but, more importantly, to our own political elite here in Scotland. More on this campaign later. For the moment, we await the revelation of John Swinney’s ‘Big Secret Plan’. Bring on the clowns!

In a response to one of my comments on social media about the Section 30 process (I can’t find it now), somebody remarked that they reckon most people know that a Section 30 referendum is not “legally binding”. In reply, I wondered why, if so many people are aware that a Section 30 referendum is a sham, they persist in voting for the SNP. I’m not sure most people are aware of the true nature of a referendum legislated for with transferred powers. I suspect a great many people see headlines that include the word ‘independence’ and imagine that the vote in the Scottish Parliament today (Tuesday 26 May) is about independence. It really isn’t.

As if to confirm my suspicions regarding the misunderstanding of today’s ‘debate’, the next thing I saw was a letter to The National the first sentence of which is:

Like many, I am delighted to hear that John Swinney is to bring a motion on Scottish independence to Holyrood on Tuesday.

No, he isn’t!

What is happening in the Scottish Parliament today is mere political theatre. Let me remind you of the text of John Swinney’s motion.

That the Parliament welcomes the emphatic democratic mandate for bold and ambitious reform backed by the people of Scotland at the Scottish General Election; further welcomes the Scottish Government’s clear commitment to eradicate child poverty, deliver a stronger NHS and public services, build a more prosperous economy and help people in the cost of living crisis and tackle climate change; recognises that the people of Scotland have returned the largest pro-independence majority ever elected to the Scottish Parliament; believes this majority affirms a clear mandate that decisions about Scotland’s future are best taken in Scotland and that mandate must be respected; calls on the UK Government to make a Section 30 order under the Scotland Act 1998 to devolve the powers to the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum on Scottish independence, and agrees that the Parliament is at its best when it works together in pursuit of a country that can be confident in its future.

The motion will pass. Of that, I am certain. With 72 nominally pro-independence MSPs in the chamber, it would be a bit embarrassing for John Swinney if his motion failed. That’s putting it mildly. It won’t fail. But that needn’t prevent us from speculating as to the implications of hypothetical failure. It would be potentially catastrophic. John Swinney could be forced to resign. Scotland’s cause would suffer a serious setback. It would be a mess.

That’s what failure means. What about success? What is achieved when the motion is endorsed by a majority of MSPs? The cost of failure is exorbitant. You might therefore expect that the benefit of success would be correspondingly noteworthy. But you’d be wrong. The motion passing achieves nothing. It changes nothing. It has no effect whatever.

Actually, that’s not quite true. There is no benefit to Scotland’s cause pursuant to the passing of the motion. What benefit there is goes to John Swinney and the SNP. For all the hype surrounding it, the motion merely asks the parliament to approve Swinney’s request for a Section 30 order. He can do that anyway. He doesn’t require parliament’s approval. He could simply have gone ahead with writing to the British Prime Minister, beseeching him to have his parliament consent to a temporary and conditional transfer to Holyrood of competence to legislate for a deliberative and non-self-executing referendum on the question of whether Scotland should be an independent country. In reality, just a glorified opinion poll.

The benefit for Swinney is that bringing this motion to the Scottish Parliament makes it look like he is doing something positive and constructive for Scotland’s cause. A perception enhanced by a slew of headlines containing the word ‘independence’. Many and perhaps most people who take any interest at all will probably think it is a “motion on Scottish independence”, just like the letter writer mentioned above. They will think it important, if they think of it at all. It isn’t.

Almost as certain as the endorsement of Swinney’s motion is that Starmer will reject the request for a Section 30 order on whatever grounds take his fancy. Most likely it will be something along the lines of ‘Now is not the time’, implying that there might be an appropriate time; this just isn’t it. Starmer can’t say that there will never be another referendum, because that would constitute a denial of our right of self-determination and put the UK on the wrong side of international law. Saying that now is not the time suggests that there is something about present circumstances that makes it an inappropriate time to have a referendum. But there is nothing about present circumstances that makes them exceptional. The way things are is pretty much the way things always are. So, saying that now is not the time is a convenient way of saying never without actually saying never.

What next? That’s always the question. What happens next? What happens when John Swinney’s request for a Section 30 order is dismissed? What are his options?

Does he have any options? Is there anything Swinney can actually do when his begging letter is brushed aside with a stroke of the British Prime Minister’s pen? Anything, that is, except bleat about how unfair it all is. SNP loyalists claim Swinney has a ‘Big Secret Plan’. They really believe this. But what would such a plan look like?

Obviously, it would have to be something other than a Section 30 referendum. That has been ruled out. So, it would of necessity be a way forward which didn’t require Westminster’s consent. But if there is a way forward that doesn’t require consent which isn’t going to be forthcoming anyway, why did Swinney not do that in the first place? Why go through all the bother of asking knowing the answer will be no when there is a way that doesn’t involve getting permission?

I can only think of one thing that Swinney might do when his supplication proves fruitless. The ‘Big Secret Plan’ is probably nothing more mysterious than trying to make the UK general election a de facto referendum on the question of once again asking for a Section 30 order. It’s a dance that never ends.

I’ve been poring over the motion John Swinney intends to bring to the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday 26 May, and even allowing for the customarily stilted parliamentary language, I can’t shake the sense that it is something cobbled together at the last minute. The National insists on referring to it as “John Swinney’s indyref2 motion“. However, it is not a vote on having a new referendum but on asking the UK Government for permission to hold a referendum on whatever terms the UK Government chooses to insist on.

Why? What is the point of this motion? How does it benefit Scotland’s cause?

Here is the text of the motion in full:

That the Parliament welcomes the emphatic democratic mandate for bold and ambitious reform backed by the people of Scotland at the Scottish General Election; further welcomes the Scottish Government’s clear commitment to eradicate child poverty, deliver a stronger NHS and public services, build a more prosperous economy and help people in the cost of living crisis and tackle climate change; recognises that the people of Scotland have returned the largest pro-independence majority ever elected to the Scottish Parliament; believes this majority affirms a clear mandate that decisions about Scotland’s future are best taken in Scotland and that mandate must be respected; calls on the UK Government to make a Section 30 order under the Scotland Act 1998 to devolve the powers to the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum on Scottish independence; and agrees that the Parliament is at its best when it works together in pursuit of a country that can be confident in its future.

We can safely ignore the glittering generalities that the motion leads with. This is just the administration primping and preening before the public. It is Swinney saying, “Never mind my actions; look at my intentions!” To the very limited extent that there is any meat on this gobbet of political posturing, it starts with the assertion that the electorate has given the Scottish Government a “clear mandate” for “decisions about Scotland’s future“ to be made in Scotland. This assertion immediately precedes a call for a decision about Scotland’s future to be made in London.

The motion asks the Scottish Parliament to endorse a request for a Section 30 order, which the First Minister can make without the need for any endorsement by the Scottish Parliament. There is nothing to stop the First Minister requesting a Section 30 order at any time. The motion is pointless.

As I read the bit that asks the UK Government to “make a Section 30 order”, my first thought was that this is not what Swinney promised. I seemed to recall him saying that he intended to ask MSPs to agree to him drafting a Section 30 order. Knowing my memory isn’t exactly reliable, I checked. What I found was that Swinney had merely strongly implied that he would be drafting the Section 30 order.

So I can confirm today that on the first sitting day after the appointment of the new government, we will bring forward a vote of the Scottish Parliament to approve the development of a Section 30 order to give Scotland the power to hold an independence referendum.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to take this as meaning the “development“ of a Section 30 order was to be done by the Scottish Government. Not that this was at all significant. It just demonstrates the need for great care when reading politicians’ words. Even now, I read the above and wonder why the Scottish Parliament is being asked to “approve” something that the UK Government was going to be asked to do.

More important is the disjuncture between the claim that the Scottish electorate has voted in favour of independence by returning “the largest pro-independence majority ever elected to the Scottish Parliament“ and referring the matter to the British state. If the people of Scotland are sovereign, our word is final. If the people have voted for independence, that is what must be delivered. If the people have voted for a new referendum, that is what must be delivered. The UK Government has no say in the matter.

Did the electorate give Swinney a “clear mandate” for anything? Not if the man himself is to be taken at his word. Prior to the election he insisted that only 65 seats or more for the SNP would constitute a mandate. Now, he is claiming as a mandate the very thing he rejected as constituting a mandate prior to the election. It all gives the distinct impression John Swinney is just making it up as he goes along. Which makes a mockery of the notion that there is a secret plan.

Swinney’s motion is performative. It is meant to give the impression that when it comes to the constitutional issue, he’s on it. It would be more accurate to say he’s at it. The UK Government can and probably will simply ignore this clumsy bit of parliamentary theatre. Which is for the best. The worst thing that could happen would be for Starmer (or successor) to grant that Section 30 order. But I’m not going to get into explaining why the Section 30 process is a trap yet again.

Swinney’s motion prompts many more questions. His ‘strategy’ is not new. It is around fifteen years old. What Swinney is doing now could have been done at any time since the vote in 2014. So, why hasn’t it been done? If this is a brilliant strategy now, it was just as brilliant two years ago. Or four years ago. Or eight years ago. Of course, the request for a Section 30 order would have been denied every time. But isn’t that the whole and sole point of the strategy? Isn’t its only purpose to extract that refusal from the UK Government? Isn’t the SNP’s argument that these knockbacks all drive more people towards supporting independence? If that is the case, surely more is better. If every refusal increases support for independence, surely at least one a year would have done wonders for the cause.

There is no evidence that Section 30 requests being denied increases support for independence, of course. But what does that matter? Since when did the independence movement demand such evidence for the SNP leadership’s pronouncements? The larger part of the independence movement seems convinced that Swinney is following some minutely crafted plan. There is no evidence for that either. Swinney has been stumbling and fumbling on the constitutional issue ever since he became party leader again. Everything the SNP says seems to be at odds with whatever they said previously. It all looks reactive and erratic.

Swinney’s motion on Tuesday will change nothing, no matter how much fanfare it is afforded. It is all but certain the motion will be approved. This will be hailed as a leap forward for Scotland’s cause. The party loyalists will cheer themselves hoarse. Other than that, nothing will happen.