#ScottishUDI - The strategy for independence

Presentation to the Independence Forum Scotland (IFS) Autumn Convention 2025

As we meet, I imagine most of us are thinking of the 2026 Scottish general election. I have an important piece of information regarding that event.

March 2026 is not March 2011!

Everything is different. Thanks to the likes of Alf Baird, Sara Salyers and Liberation Scotland our understanding of Scotland’s constitutional situation is different.

Thanks to such as Richard Murphy, Tim Rideout and the Scottish Currency Research Group our appreciation of Scotland’s economic situation is different.

Thanks to organisations such as IFS and the Scottish Sovereignty Research Group our perspective on the nature of Scotland’s cause and the means by which it might be resolved has altered dramatically since 2011.

Everything is different.

And yet, John Swinney assures us that all we need to do to achieve independence is rerun the 42 months between March 2011 and September 2014.

He is wrong. He is horribly and disastrously wrong. He is wrong in far too many ways for me to recount now.

I did not come here to attack John Swinney or the SNP or any of the other nominally pro-independence parties. And I’m sure it’s not what you want to hear.

There is a reason I mention John Swinney and his notion of replaying the past. It is to illustrate the point that in order to craft a credible strategy to achieve any political goal it is essential to know the starting point.

Scotland’s struggle to restore our independence is often likened to a journey. We speak of ‘routes to independence’. Well. in order to plan a journey you need to know as precisely as possible where you are setting off from.

Our starting point is not March 2011. The starting point for our journey is March 2026.

Planning the journey, you obviously need to know the destination. It’s good to know where you’re going.

We talk of independence being our destination. But that’s not quite correct. Strictly speaking, our destination is the place where the sovereign people of Scotland exercise our inalienable right of self-determination. It is then for the people to decide whether we go on to independence, or not.

Independence is the aspiration. A proper constitutional referendum is the destination.

Given that ‘access to the means by which the sovereign people of Scotland exercise their inalienable right of self-determination’ is rather a mouthful, I think we may be forgiven for using the term ‘independence’ as shorthand. But sometimes pedantic is good. Sometimes it reveals or illuminates things not conveyed by the shorthand term.

So, the question is how do we get from where we are now to that proper constitutional referendum.

(I speak of a proper constitutional referendum as opposed to a Section 30 referendum - which is nothing like a proper constitutional referendum. In a proper constitutional referendum, the people have the final word. In a Section 30 referendum, Westminster has the final word. There are other differences. But that one alone rules out the Section 30 process. You’ll find more detail on what constitutes a proper constitutional referendum in the handout I’ve prepared.)

Our starting point is Scotland as annexed territory of England-as-Britain. Effectively, a colony. You may dislike my use of the word ‘colony’. But when all the characteristics of a colony are present and all the criteria for a colony are met, I challenge you to find a better term to describe our constitutional status.

We have a devolved parliament and government. The parliament is best thought of as the original Parliament of Scotland which was taken from us by nefarious means in 1707.

In 1999, that parliament was returned to us. But it was returned to us in chains. The chains of devolution. To make the devolved Scottish Parliament once again the Parliament of Scotland, we must cast off the chains of devolution.

That is where we are. A nation with a parliament which is bereft of the essential powers of a national parliament because those powers are withheld by the coloniser. And because our government meekly accepts the coloniser’s asserted authority to withhold those powers.

Those powers were taken from us. We must take them back. Power is never given. Power is only taken. That which is given is not power, but an affirmation of the power of the giver.

The most fundamental of all the powers that are illegitimately withheld from our parliament is power over constitutional affairs. The proper constitutional referendum that is our destination can only be reached by way of an Act of the Scottish Parliament. There can only be such an Act if the Scottish Parliament possesses the appropriate legislative competence. The Scottish Parliament can only acquire this legislative competence by taking it.

Power is never given. Power is only taken.

When planning a journey, as well as knowing your starting point and destination, it is helpful to have information which allows you to choose the most efficient route. You want to know which places are unavoidable and which places you would be better to avoid if possible. You want to know where the best travelling conditions are and where delays or obstacles might be encountered.

In planning your route, you want to be clever about it.

#ScottishUDI is an attempt to map out the best route from where we are to where we want to be.

Just like an itinerary for an actual journey, the #ScottishUDI route map can be broken down into stages, which can them be broken down further into sub-stages. These stages and sub-stages need be neither consecutive nor separate. There may be overlap. Some stages may be simultaneous. some stages are critically dependent on the progress of other stages. They are presented as a sequential list purely for convenience.

Before continuing, I should point out that this plan has been in development for about six years. It has evolved over that time. You may find that what I describe today differs slightly from earlier versions you may have encountered. Plans must adapt to changing circumstances as well as new information.

I shall now set out as concisely as I can the basic stages of the #ScottishUDI process.

1. Repudiate the Section 30 process as an illegitimate constraint on the exercise by the people of Scotland of our right of self-determination.

It is necessary to repudiate the Section 30 process for a number of reasons:

Because it has been promoted so vigorously as the ‘gold standard’ of democracy, and it definitely isn’t that.

Because it is wrong. If we adhere to the principle that the people of Scotland are sovereign, then there can be no effective veto on the democratically expressed will of the people and no external control over our access to the means by which the people express their will.

It is also necessary to repudiate the Section 30 process in order to eliminate one of the bases for a legal challenge to this process by the British state. I shall return to this point later.

2. Declare one or all future Scottish Parliament elections to be a plebiscite on the question of the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament to facilitate the exercise of Scotland’s right of self-determination.

This would mean, for example, that the 2026 Scottish general election would also be a plebiscite with the aim of generating a mandate for the Scottish Parliament to take to itself the legislative competence necessary in order to hold a proper constitutional referendum

By doing this, we move the constitutional issue into the realm of human rights, with us occupying the high ground.

To make an election - which is inherently non-binary – work as a plebiscite it is necessary to introduce a binary element. This can be done by having all pro-independence parties adopt a common manifesto commitment on the constitution. That commitment being to this process. A vote for any pro-independence party thereby becomes a vote in favour of following all the stages I am outlining.

3. Assert the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament in matters pertaining to the constitution on the basis of its democratic legitimacy and the sovereignty of Scotland’s people, citing the fact this is the only way the people of Scotland can be enabled to exercise our human right of self-determination.

(This is where I return to what I was saying earlier about the need to repudiate the Section 30 process. If the Section process is accepted by the Scottish Government as a valid means of exercising our right of self-determination then the British state, in mounting a legal challenge to the Scottish Parliament asserting legislative competence as described, can claim that this is redundant because there exists a formally recognised way for the people to exercise their right of self-determination; as well as the fact that if John Swinney gets his way, the Scottish Government will have acceded to the sovereignty of Westminster and hence denied the sovereignty of Scotland’s people.)

Most of you will surely have realised that this is where the #ScottishUDI plan starts to work in tandem with the UN initiative.

4. Recall Scotland’s Members of Parliament from Westminster to sit on a National Convention established by the Scottish Parliament, along with Members of the Scottish Parliament and such representatives of civic society as are deemed appropriate by the Scottish Parliament, for the purpose of drafting of a Bill of Dissolution to include a draft Interim Constitution for Scotland, provisions for a confirmatory referendum, and such other matters as shall be deemed appropriate by the Scottish Parliament.

5. By way of a Bill of Dissolution introduced to the Scottish Parliament, propose dissolution of the Union with England subject to approval by the Scottish Parliament and ratification by the people of Scotland in a confirmatory referendum that stands as the formal exercise by the people of Scotland of our inalienable right of self-determination.

6. Assuming the Bill of Dissolution becomes an Act of the Scottish Parliament, hold a referendum on the question of ratifying the Act of Dissolution. Said referendum to be held according to provisions set out in the Act of Dissolution including that it be held under the auspices of the Scottish Parliament, managed entirely by Scottish democratic institutions, and subject to oversight by the National Convention and such other bodies as may be appointed by the Scottish Parliament e.g a Scottish Electoral Commission.

Only after passing through these stages can the campaign for independence begin as the independence movement mobilises to persuade the people of Scotland to approve the Act of Dissolution.

I am firmly persuaded that this fight will be won in a conclusive manner. A date will be set to be forever celebrated as Scotland’s Independence Day. We will have a party. And then we will set about the task of fully decolonising Scotland and repairing the ravages wrought by three centuries of subordination, degradation, and exploitation.

The #ScottishUDI process ends with a beginning.