Believe in Scotland has been campaigning for around seven years. It bills itself as the main independence campaign organisation. Its aim is to “make the case for an independent Scotland, to reach out to undecided voters and blah blah blah”. To date, Believe in Scotland has had no discernible effect on support for independence as indicated by polls. This is not to denigrate the activists doing the campaigning work. They are the lions led by donkeys.
Believe in Scotland is led by Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp. The SNP is led by John Swinney. Neither of these men has had a fresh thought on the constitutional issue since 2012. Both put Westminster at the centre of the constitutional issue. Both are wedded – seemingly irrevocably – to the Section 30 process. Both refuse to listen to any dissenting voices. Both refuse to consider any perspective other than their own. Both are locked into an approach to the constitutional issue that was out of date even before the vote in 2014.
Neither Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp nor John Swinney can accept that their approach to the independence campaign is totally ineffective and has been since some time around the middle of 2014. Neither of them has an accurate understanding of Scotland’s situation. Neither of them has a plan for restoring Scotland’s independence. Neither of them is capable of formulating a plan to restore Scotland’s independence because neither of them has a true appreciation of the starting point for such a plan. Neither of them is capable of devising an effective campaign because both imagine that after the vote in 2014 Scotland returned to the status quo ante and remained there.
Neither Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp nor John Swinney has paid any heed to the new thinking in the independence movement among those who have taken on board the lessons of the past and kept an open mind about the future.
There is nothing to indicate that either Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp or John Swinney are aware of any of the hard truths learned by those people in the independence movement who are capable of thinking outside the wee British box of the Sturgeon doctrine. Hard truths such as the fact that Scotland’s cause comprises two distinct tasks and that these must be tackled in the correct order. Before we can engage in the effort to restore Scotland’s independence, we must first secure the means and opportunity to exercise our right of self-determination.
Other hard truths are:
There is no ‘legal and constitutional’ route to a proper constitutional referendum and independence. There is no route to a proper constitutional referendum and independence through the legal and constitutional framework which has developed under the influence of the imperative to preserve the Union. Any route to a proper constitutional referendum and independence that might exist will be branded illegal and unconstitutional by the British state.
There is no route to a proper constitutional referendum and independence which does not pass through a point at which there is acrimonious confrontation with the British state.
Westminster has no legitimate role in the exercise by the people of Scotland of our right of self-determination.
Westminster is not obstructing our progress to a proper constitutional referendum and independence, because Westminster has no legitimate role in this process.
Ensuring the people of Scotland have the means and opportunity to fully and freely exercise our right of self-determination is the responsibility of the Scottish Government, it being the body possessing the greater democratic legitimacy.
The Scottish Parliament is the successor to or continuation of the ancient parliament of Scotland taken from us in 1707 and returned in 1999, bound in the chains of devolution.
Devolution is not about empowering a Scottish Parliament. Devolution is entirely and solely about withholding powers that are rightfully vested in the Scottish Parliament.
Westminster cannot transfer powers which supersede its own because this is prohibited by the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Transferred powers can never be such as would permit the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a proper constitutional referendum.
Scotland’s independence will be restored by an Act of the Scottish Parliament once it has repossessed the legislative competence illegitimately withheld by the British state.
A de facto referendum can never be conclusive enough to restore Scotland’s independence. Only a proper constitutional referendum can settle such a momentous matter.
A de facto referendum should be used to generate a mandate for the Scottish Parliament to repossess legislative competence in matters relating to the constitution.
The campaign strategy of selling independence as if it were a holiday destination has ceased to be effective. It is only one-third of a campaign. As well as giving people a reason to go there, it is also necessary to give them a reason to leave where they are and an explanation of how they can get from one to the other.
The SNP has abandoned its role as the party of independence and left the independence movement without a party-political and parliamentary arm. That role must be filled by a new party.
That the people of Scotland are sovereign is both a constitutional fact and an inviolable principle underpinning Scotland’s distinct political culture and identity as a nation.
The UN initiative being pursued by Liberation Scotland/Salvo will not restore Scotland’s independence. Restoring Scotland’s independence will require an internal (to Scotland) political and parliamentary process.
The mindset required for a successful campaign to restore Scotland’s independence involves thinking of Scotland as having been annexed by England-as-Britain as well as regarding the Scottish Parliament as the national parliament of Scotland and adhering to the principle of popular sovereignty.
The phenomenon of the colonised mind is real even if Scotland is not perceived to be a colony in any traditional sense. Likewise, the colonisation of Scotland’s political, social, and cultural institutions.
The foregoing is almost certainly not a comprehensive list of the truths that live in the decolonised mind. But the effort to grasp these truths will surely trigger the process of decolonisation. I may add other truths as they occur to me.
No political party or campaign organisation will serve Scotland’s cause that is not informed by these truths.
None of us who have been immersed our entire lives in a sea of British propaganda will ever fully decolonise our minds. Scotland will only be free of this most insidious form of colonisation when children are born into a society that has freed itself as completely as possible from the affliction. Scotland will only be fully liberated when a generation is born which only knows the colonisation of the mind as a history lesson.
Your final paragraph is absolutely brilliant. I wish I had written it.
However my mental bent is more aimed at the actual freeing Scotland militarily if need ...( do we have an army?) from this pernicious prison that we find ourselves locked into. And that involves frightening the sh*t out of our foreign invaders ..still embedded in our land..sucking what they can get for free from us. When you have a tic dug into your skin ..you don't chat to it or request it please go away..you dig the b*st*rd oot and dispose of it before it poisons your system, culture or land..and eventually kills you.
The uk government is a malignant, poisonous evil tic and will eventually destroy us..if we don't waken up....
The 'chains of Devolution ' you mentioned...I would describe as the 'strait jacket of Devolution ' because no-one in their right mind would allow an enemy to take charge of their security..energy...anything of importance to their country...but we do... we are brainwashed..lied to... insulted....cheated by the foreign english rules of engagement..ie 'you do as we say. turds..but we'll let you put a tax on plastic bags...you pathetic cringing Jocks...'
The foreign hostile english always good at looking civilized while behind the scenes use all manners of devious malicious means to stay in control.
Meantime a Scottish soldier in highland dress stands outside Balmoral.. supposedly 'guarding' the pantomime who are having another holiday...poor soul..he looked so comical standing there in his wee kilt protecting our foreign english INVADERS....says it all....
For OUR Scotland and her clueless weans.
That's an excellent list of hard and home truths for mainstream 'pro-Independence' leaders, influencers, bloggers, journalists and columnists who seem still to be living as if they intend to be forever dreaming of being in the early days of a re-born nation.
If I may be so bold as to add to / augment your roll-call:
Any formal British state involvement in, interference with, or influence over, Scotland’s self-determination process will make it impossible to restore Scotland’s full self-government.
Any proposal outlining a path to the return of Scotland’s independent statehood must be endorsed by the people of Scotland in a national referendum otherwise it will not be accepted by the population.
Any reformed constitutional arrangements that leaves Scotland under British/London/Westminster rule will make it impossible to restore Scotland’s full self-government.