We’ll need a radical case for independence to win voters over to Yes

This is an indication that it is the economic case for independence of a radical sort that could be the decisive factor in mobilising the mass of people to turn out and vote Yes in a referendum.

Unfortunately, this is not the case that either the SNP or Scottish Government chooses to make. When the Scottish Government published its first new independence prospectus in the summer of 2022 called Independence in the Modern World – Wealthier, Happier, Fairer: Why Not Scotland?, it was the same essential prospectus. This is that Scotland as a country – and the whole society within its borders – will be wealthier and fairer under independence. Yet within its pages, though it is never overtly stated or specified it is, nonetheless, generally implied that this means that all those living in Scotland will be better off. There are two problems with this seemingly fair and equitable ambition.

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First, it is never quantified what this will mean so it seems intangible and difficult to relate to. In other words, the vague promises made do not mean much to people at all. At least in the run up to the referendum on September 18, 2014, the SNP Scottish Government under Alex Salmond said that everybody would be £500 better off after independence.

Even if this was woefully little, especially to the citizens in the poorer sections of society in Scotland, it was some acknowledgement that the economic benefits of independence had to be quantified. £500 back then would now be approaching £700. But £700 now would barely pay a quarter of a year of the new increased energy bills.

Second, those that need to be better off are the poorer and not the richer and it is the poorer that are the mass of the electorate that need to be convinced they will be substantially economically better off under independence. Essentially, and to put it somewhat bluntly, independence needs to appeal economically to the working-class and not middle-class. This is all the more so now that we are in a cost of living crisis with inflation at more than 10% and where a new wave of austerity in public spending is about to be unleashed by the Tories.

Taken together, what this means is that the economic appeal in order to win the next independence referendum is not one to be one concerned with reassuring the international money markets, overseas investors or financial speculators.

Instead, it must be one where, through the real value of wages, the social wage (of welfare benefits, value of public services) and taxation, working people can be sure they and their families will materially be better off.

When it comes down to it, this is about class and not nation. “Scotland” and the society within it is not a homogeneous mass. It is one that is riven by class divisions: divisions of power, resources, interests and ideology and by social class, where wealth is an obvious differentiating component. Those that work for their living and do so for rewards that are not great are the working-class. Those that work for their living but do so for great rewards are the middle-class.

This is not just an argument about fairness – the poorer should no longer be so. There is that but it is also an argument about strategy and tactics. Workers and the working-class are objectively the largest social class in Scotland as elsewhere. Here, it is a numbers game. Assuming that members of the working-class are registered to vote and are willing to vote, both of which are issues, convincing them that they will be better off will be the decider come the next referendum. It will not be the middle-class commentariat or BBC that does so. Getting all register to vote, then voting, and voting Yes will most easily be accomplished by making the case to them for their quantifiable economic betterment post-independence.

Professor Gregor Gall is editor of ‘A New Scotland: Building an Equal, Fair and Sustainable Society’ (Pluto Press)