Rebel-lite

The Herald's headline Rebels in secret indy plot ahead of SNP national conference should gladden the heart of any Scottish nationalist. There is great appeal in the idea of 'ordinary' party members fighting back against the leadership that has worked so assiduously to disempower them. The independence movement has been eagerly awaiting an internal rebellion in the SNP for at least a decade. In the period leading up to conference or National Council, every finger would be crossed in the fervent hope that this would be the one where we would see the long-awaited uprising. As with so much about the modern SNP, keen anticipation was followed by anti-climax and disappointment. Here we go again!

My own heart doesn't gladden so easily these days, hardened as it is by experience of way too much anti-climax and disappointment. Admittedly, the headline's failure to lift my spirits at all may be explained by the fact that I was already aware of this "secret indy plot" through my sources. I knew that there was no reason to get excited about this 'rebellion'. Not that it isn't good to be reminded that there are still people in the SNP who don't outsource their thinking to the leadership cabal. Antipathy towards the party should always be tempered by awareness of such people. Party members prepared to question and even defy the upper echelons are to be applauded and supported. They are the baby that should not be thrown out with the brackish bathwater of the SNP leadership.

It seems that 43 SNP branches are supporting a resolution to rival the 'official' one which sets out John Swinney's plan, stating that only an outright SNP majority as in 2011 will represent a mandate for independence. Except that it is not a mandate for independence but a mandate for 'negotiations' with the UK government.

The competing resolution says that "a majority of the popular vote on the sum of the Independence Supporting Parties’ List Votes in the 2026 Scottish parliamentary election" will constitute a mandate to "deliver independence”. Except that it is not a mandate for independence but as spokesperson for the plotters, Graeme McCormick, states, a mandate "to open negotiations with the UK Government around independence".

You see the problem.

The 'rebels' disagree with John Swinney about what constitutes a mandate for independence. Each prefers their own method for establishing the will of Scotland's people. John Swinney says it is by electing a majority of SNP MSPs. Graeme McCormick says it is by giving a majority of list votes to "Independence Supporting Parties". Either way, this is to be regarded as the people of Scotland expressing their will in favour of independence. But neither resolution proposes that the will of the people should be respected. Both call it a vote for independence. Neither treats it as such.

Neither of these resolutions can be considered a plan for restoring Scotland's independence because neither of them has independence as its endpoint. Both end not at independence, but at negotiations with the British government. We are left to assume that these negotiations will lead to independence being restored. They may. There again, they may not. In fact, given the British state's attitude on the matter, the safe assumption would be that these negotiations would not be a precursor to independence.

Meanwhile, Scotland is not independent. The people have voted for Scotland to be independent. That is the democratically expressed will of the sovereign people of Scotland. Yet neither the 'official' nor the 'rebel' proposal respects the people's will. Both ask for a mandate for independence. Neither delivers.

When the people vote for independence, that vote must be conclusive. It must be the end of the matter. The people are sovereign. They are the ultimate political authority. The expressed will of the people is non-negotiable. Both these proposals treat the mandate of Scotland’s people as merely a bargaining chip to be taken into negotiations with the coloniser.

I have no doubt that supporters of both the 'official' and the 'rebel' resolutions will respond saying that there must be negotiations on a post-independence settlement. But that is not what is described by either of these resolutions. According to both, negotiation with the British state is the only thing that ensues from the vote. Given that the people of Scotland are sovereign, the only thing that may rightly ensue from a vote for independence is independence.

Of course there must be negotiations with England-as-Britain. But Scotland cannot sensibly go into these negotiations as a subordinate part of the nation with which we are negotiating. The negotiations must be between two nations of equal status. They must be post-independence negotiations. They come after independence is the hard fact it must be the moment the sovereign people vote for it.

Note also that neither resolution proposes to repudiate the Section 30 process. Both propose entering into negotiations with England-as-Britain before independence has been declared and with the Section 30 process still on the table. Both resolutions assume the British state will agree to negotiate. They assume the British state will enter into negotiations with independence for Scotland as a precondition. They trust to luck that the British state will not counter with the offer of a Section 30 order. Neither has ruled this out in advance. So, it continues to be accepted by the Scottish Government as the only "legal and constitutional" route to independence. It is still the Scottish Government's position that a Section 30 referendum is the "gold standard" of democracy. So, how does the Scottish Government refuse a Section 30 order if/when it is offered.? Where would that leave Scotland's cause?

Far from repudiating the Section 30 process, John Swinney makes it quite clear that this is what the negotiations will be for. He is selling his plan as "the path which we know can lead us to an independent state". But the path he wants us to follow is not to independence but to a consultative and non-self-executing referendum held under conditions dictated by the British state. A sham independence referendum which, by design, cannot lead to the restoration of independence because it leaves final interpretation and implementation of the result to the British state.

According to Graeme McCormick, the 'rebel' resolution rejects the idea of a referendum altogether. It does not, however, pre-empt the offering of a Section 30 order.

We are done asking for referenda. Never again will we accept a Scottish SNP leader or First Minister going cap in hand to Westminster for permission to leave the Union. That time is past.

But where John Swinney is clear that he would be negotiating only for a Section 30 referendum, Graeme McCormick is proposing "negotiations with the UK Government around independence". These can only be negotiations for a Section 30 order as that is the most that the British state will ever offer. Presumably, having so forcefully discounted "referenda", Graeme McCormick's 'plan' would be to reject a Section 30 offer. He would consider the negotiations to have failed. He says:

If the negotiations aren’t successful, then we’ll move to dissolve the union. It’s perfectly legal to do so.

Which begs a glaringly obvious question. If he can legally dissolve the Union and given that this is what the people of Scotland have voted for, why isn't he doing it? Why enter into "negotiations with the UK Government around independence" when there is a "perfectly legal" way to respect the will of Scotland's people and restore Scotland's independence immediately?

The fatal flaw with both these 'plans' is that they put the British state at the centre of the constitutional issue. It is that approach which has left Scotland's cause moribund for nearly eleven years. Eleven years of near-perfect conditions for progressing Scotland's cause have been squandered because this deference to Westminster is so engrained in Scotland's political elite. There are too many colonised minds among the leading figures in the independence movement. To many minds that are incapable of thinking of independence without thinking of Westminster when they should be thinking only of the people of Scotland.

The resolution submitted to the SNP's October conference by Newington & Southside branch illustrates the thinking of decolonised minds. It derives from a perspective on the constitutional issue which is firmly centred on the people of Scotland, pushing Westminster to the margins. The final paragraph reads:

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.

If Graeme McCormick and those 43 branches want the 2026 election to be the democratic event that starts the process of restoring Scotland's independence, the way to do that is to withdraw all other 'rival' resolutions and have all the 'rebels' in the SNP put their weight behind the Newington Resolution. Swinney's resolution must be rejected. All those 'rebels' understand just how difficult this will be. Better they combine forces behind one alternative resolution. And better that this be a resolution that really does set us on the path which we know can lead us to an independent state.