Almost getting there

Yesterday, I did something I don’t often do; I watched a YouTube video. To be more accurate, I watche the part of this video recommended by your n4m3. In the clip, Craig Murray was talking about the constitutional issue and how we should go about restoring Scotland’s independence. It’s worth listening to.

I’ve known Craig for a number of years and I have heard him speak on many occasions. Two things struck me as I watch the video. I noticed a massive change in the vies expressed compared with the days when I shared a platform with him at Hope Over Fear rallies and other events. Gone was the support for the SNP which was the default position for almost all pro-independence activists up until 2015. Craig is now standing as a list candidate for Liberate Scotland; recently rebranded Alliance to Liberate Scotland. At least, that was the party he was affiliated to last time I checked. He has been associated with quite a few over the years.

What I glean from Craig’s words is that he is now talking openly about UDI. Like myself, he appears to have concluded that the only way we will get independence is by taking it. I find some gratification—and not a little validation—in the fact that the position I have been commending for about a decade has been taken up by as prominent and respected a figure as Craig Murray.

He is not alone. More and more I am finding commentators and leading figures in the independence movement prepared to take the gloves off when it comes to Scotland’s cause. Amid all the failed initiatives I’ve had in the past ten years or more, I’m glad to be able to claim some credit for this normalising of the term UDI, as well as other aspects of the new thinking. Minds are being decolonised. If I have contributed to this process in any way and to any degree, then I have done my bit for Scotland’s cause.

Of course, I’m not claiming to have directly influenced people like Craig Murray. All I have done is change the climate in which discourse is conducted in a small way. Like the tip of the butterfly’s wing that eventuates in a tornado.

As far as Craig Murray has moved towards the radical wing of the independence movement, he still isn’t quite where he needs to be. He’s got the radical bit right in respect of his acceptance of UDI. But he hasn’t got to the clever bit that takes the radical out of the realm of electioneering rhetoric and into the sphere of practical politics. Somewhat surprisingly, given his background as a diplomat turned political activist, Craig seems to have plumped for the crude, simplistic ‘just do it’ school of ‘thought’ on the ‘how’ of independence.

Craig Murray is advocating that the coming election—or some future democratic event—be treated as a de facto referendum on Scottish independence. He appears to take the view that independence can ensue directly from an election which fringe nominally pro-independence parties pretend is a constitutional referendum. The problems with this notion should be obvious. But given that it is by my own estimation the second most widely held ‘plan’ after John Swinney’s proposed treachery, I think to problems with this idea may need to be aired yet again.

Firstly, it won’t work because the SNP isn’t signed-up to it. Like it or not—and I am in the latter category—the SNP is going to be the largest party and party of government after the 2026 Scottish Parliament election. No progress can be made on the constitutional issue unless the SNP is on board.

Then there is the matter of validity. A constitutional referendum is binary. An election never is. A binary element can be introduced to a Scottish general election by using the regional (list) ballot as a vote for a single, clearly-defined proposition. To be that single proposition, however, it must be adopted by all the nominally pro-independence parties. If all the nominally pro-independence parties are saying different things on the matter—even though the differences may be small—the question ceases to be binary. It’s validity can be challenged on the grounds that not everybody was voting for the same thing.

This may seem like a petty quibble. But or opponents will jump on anything that might cast doubt on an outcome they don’t like. The choice in a constitutional referendum must be as conclusive as it can be made. Even if independence were to ensue from a questionable vote, there would be conflict. We must avoid a situation in which Unionists have even superficially reasonable grounds to dispute the outcome. We can be sure the British media would give those grounds the appearance of substance.

The way to be clever as well as radical in the approach taken to the constitutional issue is to make it a human right issue by concentrating on the right of self-determination and the fact that we are being denied the means and opportunity to exercise that right. This is achieved by making the 2026 Scottish general election a plebiscite, not on independence, but on the question of the Scottish Parliament having the competence to legislate for a proper constitutional referendum.

The advantages to this approach compared to the ‘just-do-it’ notion are numerous. It makes it easier to win. People will vote for more powers much more readily than for independence. A convincing win will give the independence movement a much needed boost. Even votes for the SNP can be claimed as votes for the Scottish Parliament to have the power to hold a proper constitutional referendum, despite the fact that they are advocating a different (and entirely ill-thought) way of acquiring that power. Asserting powers in relation to the constitution is a de facto declaration of independence, because when you have power over the constitution, you have power over everything.

I could go on. The #ScottishUDI strategy sells itself, if only people would think about it instead of stopping thinking at the ‘solution’ which is thought to make for the best electioneering rhetoric. I’m sorry to say, it looks like that’s what Craig Murray has done.

There are others. My old friend Tommy Sheridan is standing for election on the same platform as Craig Murray. Whether the addition of such ‘celebrities’ will garner support for the Alliance to Liberate Scotland remains to be seen. As things stand, however, they are going to have no impact whatever on the outcome of the election. Adopting the Manifesto for Independence could change that. But I doubt anybody’s listening.

There is a column by Assa Samake-Roman in today’s National which is also relevant. But I’ll save that for another article.