We are not robots!

Now may well be “the time for us here in Scotland to start getting mobilised for an independence referendum“, as Mhairi Black says. Some might say this mobilisation is long overdue. Nonetheless, it would be great if we were at last gearing up for an independence referendum. It would be great if there was an independence referendum in prospect. Of course, there is not. We are being urged to mobilise for what is no more than a glorified public attitude survey. An exercise which will have no more effect than an opinion poll.

This is not to say that we should decline this call to action. So precarious is our situation that we cannot afford to ‘lose’ even a mock referendum. We must strive for a massive Yes vote even knowing that this will do nothing for Scotland’s cause. We strive for a Yes vote not because it will help Scotland’s cause but because failure to secure a Yes vote would be a significant setback in the fight to restore Scotland’s independence.

Nicola Sturgeon’s mock referendum is a gamble in which we stand to win nothing while risking much more than we can afford.

If the mock referendum happens and there is a Yes vote – even a huge Yes majority – the result will be deemed meaningless. Sturgeon’s own words will be bawled at us by the British media – “consultative and non-self-executing”! If on the other hand, the Yes vote falls so much as a fraction of a percentage point below 50%, that will be declared a death blow to the independence movement. So we have to mobilise. We have to win.

I wonder what the effect will be when all those who mobilise for what they believe to be an independence referendum discover that their efforts have been for nothing. How will all those Yes activists feel when they put in a massive effort only to find themselves back where they started? Angry? Perhaps. Disheartened? Probably. Despondent? You would suppose so. How might they then respond the next time Nicola Sturgeon gives the order to charge? How many of those activists will be reluctant to rouse themselves? How many will have opted out in despair? We have no way of knowing. It could be no more than a handful. It could be more. How many activists can Scotland’s cause afford to lose?

Nicola Sturgeon regards the Yes movement as a resource. Which it is, of course. That huge pool of potential activists is meant to be the army that does the slog-work in the fight to restore Scotland’s independence. But Nicola Sturgeon appears to see it as reinforcements for the SNP’s election machine. It is inevitable that the Yes movement will aid the SNP in this way. We are well aware that we have to keep the SNP in government if there is to be even the prospect of action to restore Scotland’s independence. Only the Scottish Government can initiate the process in the Scottish Parliament. The SNP is the only pro-independence party that is placed to form a (nominally) pro-independence government.

We have to help the SNP even if we are among those who have given up hope of them ever taking the necessary action because failing to keep them in power risks handing the reins to the British parties. Which would be catastrophic.

Yes activists can’t sensibly complain about being used by the SNP as there really isn’t anything else we can do. What we are fully justified in objecting to is the way we are taken for granted by the SNP leadership. Nicola Sturgeon seems to have taken too literally the metaphor describing the Yes movement as a campaigning machine. She seems to suppose that the machine can be activated with the flick of a switch when it is needed and left powered down the rest of the time. But while the Yes movement as a whole may resemble a machine its components are people. And people do not respond well to being used.

Sturgeon has left the Yes movement idle for eight years. She has called on the Yes movement only for the purpose of keeping her and her party in power. There has been no meaningful independence campaign during Sturgeon’s time in charge. She seems oblivious to the harm this inaction has wrought. The Yes movement was held together by a common purpose. Without that purpose, it has fallen apart. It’s far from certain it can ever be united again.

Now, we are being called upon again. We are being presented with that unifying purpose once again. But it is false. The referendum being proposed by Nicola Sturgeon will not advance Scotland’s cause by so much as a millimetre but will risk setting back that cause by a significant distance. How will people react when they discover they’ve been marched up the hill only to find that there’s nothing there? I suspect they will not be pleased.

That is why it is necessary to lower expectations now. The difficulty lies in finding a way to lower expectations while maintaining the required enthusiasm. I take the view that it is better to be honest with people. I reckon folk in the Yes movement are perfectly capable of understanding that the referendum that the proposed referendum will have no effect but must be won regardless. If they are left to find for themselves that they’ve been conscripted under false pretences then they are bound to be angry. If that anger is turned against the SNP then Scotland’s cause is bound to suffer collateral damage.