Trying to figure out WTF is going on The following are my notes for the presentation on the Manifesto for Independence at the Scottish Sovereignty Research Group Conference in Carnegie Conference Centre, Dunfermline. Video of the event will follow if I can make it presentable in the edit. PLEASE NOTE!
A dedicated Manifesto for Independence website has now been launched. Please be aware that for security reasons, the new petition replaces all earlier versions. If you have signed a previous version, please sign again. Your signature will not be counted twice. SSRG presentation notesThe Manifesto for Independence began life in 2020 when Geoff Bush and myself set up a Facebook Group called SNP Members for Independence. We wanted to put pressure on the SNP and other nominally pro-independence parties to make a stronger commitment to doing something about restoring Scotland's independence. So, we asked ourselves what kind of commitment this should be. What would a plan for restoring independence look like Moreover, we wanted a plan that anybody in the independence movement could support. We set about stripping away as much extraneous stuff as we could so as to create an example of a plan entirely focused on the central constitutional issue. You won't find any mention of currency or central banks or industrial policy or any other kind of policy. Just the constitutional issue. Geoff went off to work with a different group which started adding all the extraneous stuff back on in the eternal quest for the manifesto that pleases everyone and offends nobody. I persisted with the original project, trying to pare it down even more and also developing the thinking behind it. That's what I'm here to talk about today. So, I better get on with it. Six bullet pointsThe Manifesto for Independence consists of only six bullet points. I've had people complain that it is too complicated. It's six bullet points! The six bullet points outline a process which I call #ScottishUDI. This process starts from where we are right now and ends with independence restored. To date, it is the only such process to have been identified. Where the original idea was merely to produce a kind of template which others could use when formulating their own plan, it quickly became apparent to me that there was no other plan. #ScottishUDI is the only thing that works. Others talk of this and that 'route to independence'. But all those routes either end up being #ScottishUDI, or they fail to reach the endpoint of independence. All routes to independence converge on the issue of legislative competence. The British state does not deny our right of self-determination. What the British state does is obstruct our access to the means to exercise our right of self-determination. The main way in which it does this is by 'reserving' powers over the constitution. Powers which rightly belong with the Scottish Parliament, but which are being withheld. I'll now run through the six bullet points of the Manifesto for Independence and limit myself to saying three things about each of them. Obviously, there is more to be said. I hope this will be addressed in the Q&A. Repudiate the Section 30 process as an illegitimate constraint on Scotland’s right of self-determination.
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.
Assert the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament in matters relating to the constitution, on the basis of its democratic legitimacy and the sovereignty of Scotland’s people, citing the fact that this is the only way the people of Scotland can be enabled to exercise our human right of self-determination.
Recall Scotland’s Members of Parliament from Westminster to sit on a National Convention convened by the Scottish Parliament, with Members of the Scottish Parliament and such representatives of civic society as are deemed appropriate by the Scottish Parliament, for the purpose of overseeing the drafting of a provisional Constitution for Scotland.
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.
Hold a referendum on the question of the Union under the auspices of the Scottish Parliament and subject to oversight and management by the National Convention and such bodies as may be appointed by the Scottish Parliament.
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