Without hesitation, on Sunday morning Bernie Sanders said what any genuine democrat would say: if the people of Scotland "want to go their own way, they should be allowed to."

He’s absolutely right. 

It is for the people, not politicians, to decide their future. Westminster’s denial of Scottish democracy is nothing short of scandalous and the fact that it is being fronted by a Prime Minister with no democratic endorsement from Scotland makes a mockery of any notions that Westminster is the cradle of democracy. 

You don’t have to be a supporter of independence to know that rejection of Scotland’s right to choose is not democracy.

This democratic denial does not come as a huge surprise from the Tories but, these days, the pro Brexit Labour Party are happy to follow the Tories wherever they go and that includes refusing the people of Scotland a say over their future.

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All Scotland ever hears from UK politicians is ‘no’, ‘now is not the time’ and ‘you’ve had your say.’ They seem to enjoy swapping opinions on how many years it should be before Westminster maybe, might, possibly ‘allow’ us to make a democratic choice about our own future. It’s utterly contemptable.

But, given events over the past few months, this discussion about democracy could not be more timely or urgent - the democratic deficit Scotland faces is not a recent phenomenon, but the recent evidence of it shows that our democracy is in very real danger.

In order to stop the Scottish Parliament from implementing a piece of devolved legislation with cross party, majority support from MSPs of all parties, the UK government decided to use a section 35 order for the first time.

This full frontal attack on devolution caused widespread criticism – even the Labour First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford said the moves to block the law sets a "very dangerous precedent" and that “this could be a very slippery slope indeed."

You don’t need to look far to see this slippery slope either.

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The threat posed to the future of the Scottish Parliament by the UK Tory government has already started with numerous power grabs including the Internal Market Bill and the Levelling Up fund, both which take powers from Holyrood. 


More recently, MSPs voted to withhold the consent of the Scottish Parliament for the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.

If Westminster ignore Holyrood, this means UK government ministers will be allowed to act in in  policy areas that are devolved with thousands of laws and regulations on environment alone and do so without the consent of the Scottish Government - directly contradicting devolution and the Sewel Convention.

The threat to Scottish democracy does not stop here it has been going on for some time as the Tories steadily and systematically undermine our democratically elected Scottish Parliament  The only way to ensure they stop, and stop for good, is to become an independent country and for Scotland to always get the Government’s it votes for. 

The comments from Bernie Sanders this weekend hit the nail on the head – people across Scotland should be allowed a say over their future. It’s that simple. It’s democracy. 

When Scotland’s democracy is being denied, undermined and threatened on a regular basis, independence is not just needed to give Scotland the full powers to make better decisions that benefit everyone in Scotland - it is needed to protect the devolved powers we already have.