A genuine #ManifestoForIndependence

In an earlier article, I suggested that Scotland’s cause would be best served by repurposing ballots in the 2024 UK general election so as to register support for that cause and protest the lack of any coherent, concrete, credible proposals by any political party for a process by which our independence might be restored. As anticipated, the suggestion elicited a mixed reaction. While many immediately saw the value of such a direct-action effort, others either rejected the idea out of hand or expressed various degrees of doubt about its feasibility and/or potential effectiveness. A lot of those doubts arose from misconceptions about how ‘spoiled’ ballots are dealt with. Even more depressingly, large numbers of people continue to ‘put their faith’ in one or other of the nominally pro-independence political parties. This has to be a matter of faith because there is absolutely no rational reason to suppose voting for any of the parties’ candidates will be any more effective than in the past.

I addressed the matter of feasibility and potential effectiveness in response to a comment on the article alluded to above. That response might, I think, be usefully reproduced here.

The question of whether an increase in “rejected” ballots would be noticed is what seems to be exercising many people. Unfortunately, rather too many people are, through ignorance or malign intent, spreading the notion that ‘spoilt’ ballots are simply binned and disregarded. This, of course, is absolutely not the case. Ballots are only rejected after considerable scrutiny by numerous people including representatives of the political parties and other interested organisations as well as the returning officer’s staff. as is clear from the 2007 example, rejected ballots are counted and the numbers recorded along with the reason for rejection. The idea that there would be no information publicly available is nonsense. The question is whether and how that information would be presented in the media.

You correctly point out that the sharp rise in the number of rejected ballots at the 2007 election was due to dad design (Danny Alexander?) and not intentional repurposing. The media jumped on the story because it was a scandal. Or could easily be spun as a scandal. Scandal titillates. Scandal attracts the public attention that the media then sells on to advertisers. assuming it was done by a sufficient number of people and in a way that made it obviously an organised campaign, would a sharp increase in rejected ballots fail to attract the media as in 2007? Would such a campaign have lesser ‘news value’ than a cock-up scandal, or greater? would the establishment be better able to suppress such a story now than then – supposing they wished to do so?

The answer to such questions is, of course, it depends. It depends on numerous factors. The apparent assumptions of the naysayers is that we – the Yes movement – would have no influence over any of these factors. That we would be helpless in the face of establishment efforts to suppress or play down the protest. In large part, established power gets its power by convincing potential challengers that it is overwhelmingly powerful and therefore unchallengeable. So, it isn’t challenged. In fact, so long as the media are not rigidly state-controlled, it is always possible to manipulate them There are ways. Most of which rely on the fact that the media as a whole is a ravenous beast and these days a very lazy one. The beast cannot resist a free meal. So, present it with a feast it doesn’t have to go out and hunt for and it will be bound to gorge on it. No force would be able to prevent it.

The biggest impediment to popular direct action is not the power of the establishment, but the scepticism and complacency and plain idleness of the people needed to make direct action effective. Popular direct action is vastly more likely to be killed or rendered ineffective by the naysayers than by conventional power. Again, conventional power gets to be and remain established largely by deterring challenges, not by defeating them.

A campaign of repurposing ballots in the 2024 UK election could be hugely effective. It’s up to the people. So it’s probably not going to happen. The establishment wins by default again.

Dealing with the matter of faith is more problematic. It is famously, and accurately, observed that reason alone is powerless to persuade someone from a position that was not arrived at by way of reason. Faith is impervious to rational arguments because the proof of faith is the ability to believe not merely despite evidence, but contrary to evidence. The greatest faith is that which denies reality completely. Although deny is probably the wrong term. To deny something is to acknowledge its existence. For the totally faithful, nothing can exist that doesn’t accord with their dogma.

Of course, I state the extreme case by way of illustration only. I am not suggesting that those intent on voting ‘as normal’ are afflicted as badly as described above. It’s a question of degree. What I am saying is that there is a high degree of faith involved in supposing that any of the nominally pro-independence political parties is committed to a strategy that might realistically be expected to lead to the ending of the Union and restoration of Scotland’s independence. In order to believe this it is necessary to disregard completely what the parties themselves state as their ‘strategy for independence’. Or, as is often the case, to ‘interpret’ what the parties say about their strategy in such a way as to rationalise voting for them. Some of these interpretations are by way of being quite the opposite of what has been stated. All of them are at odds with the actual statement to some extent.

The thing that is common to all the nominally pro-independence parties is that they defer to Westminster. Buried in the bombast there is always this deference. They all put Westminster at the centre of their thinking on the constitutional issue. The SNP says it will ask that Westminster “give democratic effect” to the expressed will of Scotland’s people. Alba Party says it would seek negotiations with Westminster should the people of Scotland choose independence or demand a proper constitutional election. ISP supposes such negotiations can best be forced from the British state by abstention. They all locate ultimate political authority in Westminster and thus compromise the sovereignty of Scotland’s people.

Why would I vote for a party that says my vote is subject to the approval of the British parliament? Why would I vote for a party which says implementation of the will of Scotland’s people is conditional on consent from the British state? Why would I vote for a party that talks of popular sovereignty in pursuit of power, but which then attributes sovereignty to Westminster? Why would I vote for any of the nominally pro-independence parties?

As noted earlier, there are many independence supporters who will continue to vote as they have previously. They will vote from a position of faith. Faith in whichever of the nominally pro-independence parties they favour with their loyalty and devotion. Faith in whichever of the nominally pro-independence politicians they celebrate as the one to ‘lead us to independence’. Only faith. Nothing more. Because none of those parties has presented anything that a reasoning person could regard as a viable plan to restore Scotland’s independence. None of those politicians will even talk about such a plan. They will talk only in slogans and trigger-words and glittering generalities and mealy-mouthed euphemisms. They are not serious about ending the Union. Mostly, because they haven’t a clue how it is to be done. And because those that do have a clue, are too afraid to do it.

None of those politicians will say in plain language that there is no route to independence through the legal and constitutional framework developed under the imperative to preserve the Union. None of them will openly acknowledge that to break the Britannia’s grip on Scotland it will be necessary to first break Britannia’s rules. None of them will explicitly state the truth that power is never given. Power is only taken. Thus, neither parties nor politicians will commit to a genuine #ManifestoForIndependence.

I refer to the draft, bullet-point #ManifestoForIndependence drawn up by myself and Geoff Bush some months in advance of the 2021 Holyrood election and since modified slightly. Please don’t confuse this with something calling itself Manifesto For Indy which is project which branched from the original #ManifestoForIndependence ditching its adherence to a strict focus on the constitutional issue that was stripped of all policy matters and reduced the a concise statement of the process by which the Union would be ended and independence restored.

The #ManifestoForIndeependence attempts to be a statement of intent that any and all pro-independence can incorporate in all their election manifestos. Because it has no policy implications, it is unconstrained by ideology or prior policy commitments or present positions on any matter other than the urgent need to end the Union and restore Scotland’s independence. Originally, it was hoped that the SNP could be ‘persuaded’ to adopt the #ManifestoForIndependence for the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. Unfortunately, only a handful of people across the Yes movement (to the extent that such a thing can still be said to exist) showed any interest in a campaign to restore the SNP to its status as ‘the party of independence’.

Almost nobody among self-proclaimed independence activists was motivated to try and ensure that the SNP Scottish Government was bound to take the action needed to make independence happen. This disdain for collective effort is now, regretfully, an inherent characteristic of what used to be the Yes movement. That is why it is so pitifully ineffectual when it comes to driving the indispensable political arm of the movement. The Yes movement speak with a multitude of voices that are principally engaged in denouncing, decrying and deriding other voices in the Yes movement. Hence, they are easily ignored by both the Scottish Government and yon rabble of rogues and reprobates down in London.

Subsequent to the 2021 election, I hoped that Alba Party would embrace the #ManifestoForIndependence. This would have put the SNP under real pressure. Something Alba Party has signally failed to do. But Alex Salmond and the rest of the Alba Party leadership had other plans. The unsurprisingly failed ‘Scotland United’ thing, for example. The #ManifestoForIndependence was, it seems, too radical for them. They opted to remain as wedded to the Section 30 process as the SNP, while failing to conceal this fact as well as their rivals. But well enough for those who had faith instead of an intellectual process.

The #ManifestoForIndependence defines a ‘party of independence’. If a party cannot or will not adopt the core material of the #ManifestoForIndependence than I cannot regard them as being genuinely intent on ending the Union. And neither should anybody else.

Having said this, the #ManifestoForIndependence is a draft document. It is subject to amendment – so long as it does not in any way or to any extent depart from the focus on the constitutional issue. Below, I have reiterated the bullet-points in the fourth draft of the document. To be honest, I haven’t looked at this for a while as I have it all in my head. My hope was that others might suggest tweaks and improvements. But again, there has been little or no interest. I am undeterred.

The essentials set out below remain true regardless of whether anybody takes an interest. I bring this up now because adoption of the #ManifestoForIndependence is the only thing that might persuade me to vote for the party doing so, instead of repurposing my ballot as a protest vote demanding #EndTheUnion. Maybe others will also adopt this as the standard to which the political parties must rise before they can be regarded as being truly committed to Scotland’s cause. Probably not. In which case, the 2024 UK general election will change nothing. Apart, that is, from ushering in the British government which will complete the process of annexing our unfortunate nation.

Manifest for Independence

• Repudiate the Section 30 process as an illegitimate constraint on Scotland’s right of self-determination.
• Declare one or all future Scottish or UK Parliament elections to be a plebiscite on the question of the competence of the Scottish Parliament to facilitate the exercise of Scotland’s right of self-determination.
• Assert the primacy of the Scottish Parliament on the basis of its democratic legitimacy and the sovereignty of Scotland’s people.
• Recall Scotland’s Members of Parliament from Westminster to sit on a National Convention 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 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 referendum that stands as the formal exercise by the people of Scotland of our inalienable right of self-determination.
• Hold 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.