Swinney's Big Secret Plan

So, now we know! First Minister of Scotland John Swinney has at last unveiled his Big Secret Plan to hold a referendum on independence. In an exclusive interview by The National’s Steph Brawn, he revealed how he intends to address the constitutional issue now that his election strategy has failed and his supplication to the British Prime Minister was contemptuously dismissed. by some anonymous Downing Street lackey.

We now know what he has in mind. Not much!

The only impressive thing about Swinney’s Big Secret Plan reveal is the number of words he used to tell us he has no plan. That was the secret. The fact that he has no plan was what he wanted to conceal. The ‘Big’ part of the Big Secret Plan was fulfilled by the meandering bloviation of his replies to Steph Brawn’s questions.

Credit where it’s due! He’s good at what he does. What he does is look very active while doing nothing very much and talk a lot while saying nothing at all. The following extract will serve to illustrate his technique.

“I think what’s important is we don’t in any way shape or form let the UK Government off the hook,” said the First Minister.

“I’m very much aware of the swiftness with which the UK Government issued the response, but that is not acceptable. It’s not acceptable for the democratic wishes of the people of Scotland, either expressed in the election and then democratically by the parliament, to just be dismissed in such a casual fashion.

“So, before we just resign ourselves to the fact the UK Government is taking up this stance, we have to argue and press that case for Scotland to be able to decide our own future and that’s what I intend to do going forward.”

Pressed on what plan he has in mind if Starmer still does not budge on handing over powers for a referendum, Swinney said there needed to be a build-up of pressure on the UK Government from a grassroots movement.

“We’ve got to make it impossible for the UK Government to refuse the ability of Scottish Parliament to legislate on this question,” said Swinney.

“So there’s a whole host of things that have got to be done which will build up and strengthen that voice within Scotland about what needs to be done to make sure Scotland can control our own future.

If you’ve read that extract, you know all there is to know about Swinney’s Big Secret Plan. You won’t know very much. Because there’s not much to know. The best thinkers in the SNP leadership have come together and thrashed out a strategy which can be summed up in one sentence. Keep doing what we’ve been doing for the past 11+ years with nothing to show for it. If we wanted to pad it out, we might add a bit about how he subtly shifts blame for the lack of progress onto pro-independence activists. He doesn’t say so in so many words, but the subtext is there for those with an ear for such things. Here’s an example.

Swinney said part of that build-up of pressure will be working to create “cohesion” within the Yes movement, adding: “This has got to be a grassroots movement that forces the UK Government to enable Scotland to decide on her own future.”

The first thing to strike me about this—and there’s a lot more in the same vein—is the hypocrisy. Cast your mind back but a couple of weeks, and you may recall that Swinney showed little interest in “cohesion”. You’ll remember his ‘SNP only’ election strategy. Think back further and you’ll find that this attitude has prevailed within the SNP leadership bubble since 2015. When Swinney talks of “cohesion”, he means stick with him and his party. Don’t scrutinise or criticise him or his party. Just keep on voting for them while never mentioning their perfect record of failing Scotland’s cause.

Always we are told it’s all Westminster’s fault. By constantly pointing the finger of blame at the UK government and the British political parties, Swinney hopes we won’t look closer to home to find who is culpable. And it works! It is baffling how many people are taken in by this clumsy blame-shifting. By keeping Westminster at the centre of the constitutional issue, the independence industry ensures that they remain untroubled by those proposing a reframing of the issue which puts the people of Scotland at the centre, where they belong, and turns attention from Westminster and Downing Street to Holyrood and Bute House.

There is a kernel of truth in what John Swinney says. All the best political dishonesty has within it a small portion of truth which the skilled political operator will stretch to cover the lies. The truth in what Swinney says is that there is an urgent need for the independence movement to rediscover the knowledge of how to combine. As the French diplomat, political philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville reminds us:

In democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

Let’s have less talk of ‘unity’ and more talk of collaboration. cooperation and coaction. Let’s start by recognising that when John Swinney talks of “cohesion”, what he has in mind is making Scotland’s cause the exclusive province of the SNP. For decades, the SNP was ‘the party of independence’. The SNP and the independence movement were pretty much one and the same right up to the rise of the Yes movement in the period prior to the 2014 referendum-like thing. That was when people realised that it was possible to be non-SNP but pro-independence and acted on that new realisation by forming groups and organisations that were pro-independence but quite separate from the SNP.

Nicola Sturgeon saw this and immediately set about trying to co-opt and control these non-SNP elements while also suppressing the voice of dissent within the party. In the latter effort, she was very successful. In the former, maybe not so much. But looking back we can see how she secured Yes as an SNP brand, bastardising the logo in the process.

No! This is not turning into yet another rant about Sturgeon. I wish only to illuminate how the SNP and the independence movement parted company after the 2014 referendum. The bit that fell under the sway of the clique which had hijacked the SNP became what I refer to as the independence industry. The rest make up the independence movement. But the independence movement has yet to develop an identity and a voice. And that is what is required if the voice of dissent is to be heard. There must be a countervailing force to challenge the prevailing force of the independence industry.

The independence movement must develop unity of purpose. And for that to happen, there must be a purpose. John Swinney would very much like that purpose to be keeping him in his job and his party in power. This dissenting voice says a resounding no to that. This proud malcontent would be very happy to give Mr Swinney the support he thinks he’s entitled to if he looked remotely like he had a strategy which would progress Scotland’s cause. As the interview referred to at the top of this article has made plain, he has no such strategy. The Big Secret Plan is revealed to be a myth. In fact, a downright lie!

I have thoughts as to how we might develop unity of purpose within the independence movement so that it can become the countervailing force that says the things Swinney won’t say and does the things the SNP won’t do. This article is overlong already, however, so I’ll write another one on the subject of how we rediscover the knowledge of how to combine that has sadly been all but obliterated by factionalism. I’ll get to that other article just as soon as I’ve hung up the washing.