A most welcome guest today from Calum Wright, who very occasionally blogs at North By Left. Calum is a graduate of the University of St Andrews and is currently studying towards a Masters at Uppsala Universitet in Sweden. He specialises in early modern northern European history with specific interests in seventeenth century Britain, the history of ideas and political thought.
Monday saw the launch of a broad coalition of those with an interest in the future of Scotland, a coalition which presumably includes everyone in this country and a few more beside. The endeavour is as noble as it is unfocused, attempting to tackle the complex issue of ‘devolution max’, a constitutional conundrum more profound than independence. It is, of course, important that civic Scotland is engaged in the debate at all levels, but I am concerned that on the side of independence the SNP dominates, threatening to stifle all debate.
It is right that the SNP, which has campaigned ceaselessly and imaginatively for independence, should voice their well considered views. But they should not be the only voice, not even, dare I suggest it, the main voice. The mainstream media has so far ignored the Scottish Greens, but beyond the political parties represented at Holyrood there needs to be a pro-independence coalition which encompasses civic Scotland in all its variety.
Of course it can be argued that the SNP is itself a coalition of disparate interests, gathered together under Salmond’s big top with independence as the pole supporting the structure. Under that canvas huddle tartan tories and socialists, traditionalists and radicals, liberals and conservatives, republicans and monarchists. So the SNP is fundamentally unable to articulate a vision of post-independence Scotland partly because it can’t agree on what it should look like.
The SNP have therefore adopted a fairly conservative position, undoubtedly out of a desire not to frighten the horses as it were. However, this cautious approach risks hampering the swell of self-confidence which is growing in Scotland. The likelihood of independence is becoming real, and once this realisation has dawned the lid is lifted on the possibilities it offers. The unionists want to frighten Scots by trying to overwhelm them with this very fact: think of all the new institutions, civil servants, government departments, embassies, laws, legislation etcetera that will be required, they say.
So far the SNP response has been to offer some rough suggestions, which is appropriate given that future policies are the prerogative of future governments, not current ones. But a better response, and one which should involve all pro-independence parties, organisations and individuals in debate, is to say, “Yes, think of all the new things that will be required.†This is a huge change, and one that requires the people of Scotland not to sit in the audience but to take to the stage and participate in. Independence is too important to be left to the politicians.
The monumental implications and attendant possibilities of independence have been grasped by a only few and articulated by even less. Just yesterday a junior defence minister, in response to MPs’ questions about the future of Trident, stated that ‘The government are [sic] not making plans for independence as we are confident that people in Scotland will continue to support the Union in any referendum.’ Many people continue to act as if nothing will happen and many Scots remain pessimistic, burying their hopes of profound change under a traditional façade of cynicism and self-deprecation.
The problem is that the unionists warble on about technicalities and policies which are the right of post-independence parliaments alone, whilst the SNP offers, at least publicly, a timid imagining of Scotland’s future, rhetorically inspiring but ultimately nebulous. Dr Peter Lynch has written on Better Nation that ‘Independence is not a year zero for government or government institutions. Rather it is a case of bolting on new policy responsibilities… onto existing government institutions and organisations’.
This is a rather unexciting prospect. Surely the sine qua non of self-rule is the right to make decisions independently, irrespective of whether they are right or wrong. This includes the right to imagine a new Scotland, not necessarily mimicking the constitutional structures of England nor kowtowing to a fictitious constitutional past. I do not have a bold plan for a utopian Scotland at hand, but I do believe that the debate about Scotland’s future should not stop at the answer to Salmond’s proposed question. Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country? Yes. No.
There is more to be discussed, and if the SNP are left as the safe, curiously reassuring arbiters of the meaning of independence we may wake up in an independent Scotland where so much has changed, yet nothing at all. Specific policies are of course the responsibility of future Scottish governments, but I want to see the Scottish imagination awoken as part of a process of shaking off an ingrained inferiority complex and shedding the dependency psyche which the union has burdened Scots with. We should think more in terms of what independence could mean rather than what it would mean.
A contender for the hollowest of arguments coming out of Holyrood, possibly not just in this current term but in the Parliament’s history, must surely be 
