How far we've come

The most significant thing about what Craig Murray says is the fact that he is saying it. And that what he is saying is being discussed. This serves to illustrate the extent to which thinking on the constitutional issue in the independence movement has parted company with orthodoxies of the independence industry.

It’s approximately seven years since I first started writing about some form of UDI as a legitimate way of restoring Scotland’s independence. I don’t recall exactly when it was that I came to the conclusion that #ScottishUDI was the only way independence can be restored, but with a handful of others I was strenuously advocating this course in the lead-up to the 2021 Scottish general election. At that time, talk of UDI would have you relegated to the fringe of the independence movement. UDI was unthinkable. It occurred to me to wonder why the British had worked so hard at making UDI unthinkable. I quickly recognised how convenient it was for the British state that UDI was dismissed without consideration or discussion.

Six or seven years on and UDI is now firmly established as part of the discourse around Scotland’s cause. Unfortunately, much of the discussion informed by the concept of UDI is most generously described as primitive. Or perhaps ‘unevolved’ would be a better term. Craig Murray’s plan falls into this category. He makes the same mistake so many others do in failing to fully develop the human rights aspect of the constitutional issue.

Craig gets some things right, and it is important that we acknowledge this. He is right to recognise that confrontation with the British state is unavoidable. But he fails to discover ways in which we might influence the form this confrontation takes. He is right to say that there must be evident public support for what is being done. But he doesn’t explore ways in which this support can be made apparent within the democratic process. He is right to say that independence must be taken. But this is at odds with the fact that he appears to consider the Section 30 process legitimate.

Finally, he is right about using the mechanism of a confirmatory referendum to establish the impeccable democratic credentials of the unilateral declaration of independence. But on his way to this conclusion, he sidesteps the issue of legislative competence. In his rush to take independence, he misses the bit where we secure the means and opportunity to exercise our right of self-determination.

If Craig Murray’s contribution shows how far the independence movement has come since 2014, the response from the Scottish Government illustrates in the starkest manner how pathetically little the ‘old guard’ of the independence movement has travelled in that period. Craig has only a short way to go before he reaches the #ScottishUDI strategy. The independence industry, meanwhile, hasn’t even left the starting line.