Vote for what you want, not what they offer!

Repurpose your ballot!

Like the SNP, Alba Party repeats ad nauseam that it is offering a 'strategy for independence' but fails to explain what that 'strategy' is beyond getting people to vote for them. Alex Salmond mentions the phrase "give democratic effect" - the SNP leadership's euphemism for a Section 30 order. But read Alba Party's website and you'll find that they defer to Westminster every bit as obsequiously as the SNP.

Alba talks of "bending the Westminster Parliament to the will of the Scottish people", as if the will of the Scottish people requires the consent of Westminster in order to have "democratic effect". The SNP and Alba are saying the same thing using different words in the hope that voters will (a) imagine they're saying something else and (b) imagine there to be a gulf separating the parties. It's all a big con!

This is followed by a section on Ash Regan's proposed Scottish Parliament Powers Referendum Act. Despite the Alba website inviting us to "download and read the proposed bill[sic]", all that is actually provided is the "Pre Submission Consultation" document. As far as I can tell, no draft of the Bill yet exists. I'd be happy to be corrected on this. But I'd want to know why the Alba website suggests the Bill can be downloaded and read when there is no link to a draft Bill.

All we know of the proposed Scottish Parliament Powers Referendum Act is what can be gleaned from the consultation document. Ask anyone who has listened only to the rhetoric from Alba Party politicians and they'll probably tell you that the purpose of Ash Regan's Bill is to permanently transfer to the Scottish Parliament the legislative competence to hold an independence referendum. That is what we are supposed to believe. The reality is something else entirely as we discover when we take the trouble to look at what Alba Party actually says. Here is Ash Regan's account of the aims of her Bill.

The aim of the Bill is to make provision for ascertaining the views of the people of Scotland on whether the Scottish Parliament should have the powers to negotiate and legislate for independence for Scotland.

If the proposed Bill is enacted it would allow for a Referendum to take place on 19 September 2024 to ask the people of Scotland the Question:

“Should the Scottish Parliament have the power to negotiate and legislate for Scottish independence?"

So, it's a Bill to have a referendum on whether the Scottish Parliament should have the legislative competence to do something. It is not a Bill to transfer any powers at all from Westminster to Holyrood. It is a Bill to run a consultative referendum. A power which it could be argued the Scottish Parliament already has.

And what is this something that the Scottish Parliament might be empowered to do if the result of the proposed referendum is favourable and if the British state does not dismiss the outcome as nothing more than the product of a consultative and non-self-executing referendum. Ash Regan says it is the "power to negotiate and legislate for Scottish independence". It is very far from clear what this means in practice. Negotiate what? With whom? Legislate for independence? Why the hell would the British state transfer such a power, even if it could?

It can't, of course. The British parliament cannot enact anything that compromises its sovereignty. Sovereignty is absolute and indivisible. If the Scottish Parliament has the power to end the Union, presumably against the wishes of Westminster, then the Scottish Parliament is sovereign. It is the ultimate arbiter. The British parliament cannot give away its sovereignty because the sovereignty of parliament is as fundamental to England's constitution as the sovereignty of the people is to Scotland's.

The idea of a transfer of powers to a devolved administration being permanent is equally ridiculous. There is no such thing as permanent devolution. Devolution is all about withholding power. It enshrines in law the power to withhold power including the power to determine unilaterally which powers are withheld or withdrawn. That's what Section 30 of the Scotland Act is all about. It gives the British state exclusive authority to alter the list of devolved powers in any way and at any time.

Power devolved is power retained. The notion that the British parliament could permanently transfer a power while retaining that power and the power to withdraw any power at any time, is self-evidently a logical nonsense.

The only thing the British state might be prepared to devolve is the power to hold a Section 30 referendum. That is to say, a referendum which cannot lead to Scotland's independence being restored. Not least because it is a consultative exercise only with final disposition entirely in the hands of the British state.

Like Neale Hnavey's earlier 'Ten Minute Rule' Bill at Westminster, Ash Regan's proposal boils down to a kind of rolling Section 30 order - which can be withdrawn at any time. And which, as noted, cannot lead to independence being restored.

Strip away the deceptive rhetoric around both the Alba and the SNP offerings and both can be seen as surreptitious Section 30 order requests. A move which would compromise the sovereignty of Scotland's people and seriously (perhaps fatally) undermine Scotland's cause.

The very minimum requirement of a 'strategy for independence' must be that it ends with Scotland's independence restored. Neither the SNP's offering nor Alba's does this. Both end with a Section 30 request. Neither will get us any closer to independence.

The nominally pro-independence parties are lying to voters. None of them has a strategy for restoring Scotland's independence - either because they're not clever enough to work out what this would entail (unlikely in Salmond's case), or they have figured out what will be required and are just too timorous and self-interested to do it.

I shall be voting for what I want. I shall not be voting for what is offered. I'll repurpose my ballot paper as a vote to #EndTheUnion.