GERRY Hassan wrote eloquently in the Sunday National on the impasse which the independence movement has fallen into and the need for fresh thinking.

I want to suggest as a route forward that the SNP revert to our strategy of a “step-by-step” journey to independence. Embracing the devolution settlement of 1999 was a necessary step forward even though devolution itself is, as an end point, a humiliating place for an ancient nation to be.

What is necessary next is not a fresh referendum as soon as possible, which I believe we’d most likely lose, but a campaign for economic independence, for something like full fiscal autonomy (FFA), not as a terminus but as a further staging post. I struggle to think of a snappy slogan but “FFS gie us FFA!” perhaps?!

Given the timetables suggested for independence following a successful vote, it doesn’t seem impossible that, over a Scottish parliamentary term, all taxation, VAT perhaps aside, could be rolled out to Scotland. Likewise control over all welfare benefits and pensions (along with a fiscal settlement which includes some restitution for the hundreds of billions of pounds in subsidies we’ve sent down south since the UK lied to us about the likely economic benefits of our oil).

Think what we could do with those powers. Full tax powers would allow us to tax capital gains to the same level as income tax and make it easier to tax the rich at the same rates as the rest of us. Perhaps we could abolish National Insurance and replace some of it with a hypothecated tax fully funding the Scottish Health Service but at a higher level.

We could make genuine moves towards democracy in the workplace, not the tokenism of both the neoliberal Starmerites and the stale statist socialism of the Corbynites.

Maybe we could run a parallel digital currency, much as the euro ran in tandem with national currencies in its first three years. And the best way to reassure people their pensions are safe in an independent Scotland is to run the state pension before a vote on independence. Clearly a lot of detail would have to be worked out and in a very short time before 2026.

Gaining these powers would not produce an instant transformation but all that is needed to fight the gaslighting of British nationalists is that the sky does not fall in and the idea Scots couldnae run a minodge wae oot English supervision is destroyed.

We need to win over more of the 70%-80% who identify primarily as Scots, particularly the “softer” Yes voters who have latterly abandoned the SNP, and the “Augustinian” Scots. “Lord give me chastity – but not yet,” saith the young saint. Likewise: “Give us independence but not yet, not when times are tough ...” – a perfectly understandable reaction to the gaslighting of Project Fear.

The current strategy, of trying to mitigate UK failures through competently running devolution, has been a failure and a waste of the last 10 years. No matter how competently we run things, the longer we are in power, the more people will blame us for all that is wrong with our society.

It is not passing the buck to point the finger at those responsible, the UK Government, but we can do that until we are blue (and white) in the face – it’s a response with diminishing returns.

Yes there are risks in FFA but no strategy is risk free. And the more obvious fly in the ointment is that Keir Starmer would never willingly agree to an economically autonomous Scotland.

We need to win a clear and decisive majority for FFA (easier done than a majority for a fresh referendum) and we need a substantial chunk of that majority to be prepared to undertake non-violent civil disobedience if we are denied this self-determination. We’d also need to form stronger alliances against Starmer with progressive English civil nationalists.

Perhaps that is a bridge too far for 2026 but more of the same will be even less successful and at least campaigning for it would start us moving forward again.

And who knows? It’s a turbulent world just now and an energised grassroots movement for FFA could take us to the cusp of independence. Those of us in the SNP need to win over the leadership to something along these lines or, if they will not budge from the current doomed strategy, elect a new leadership.

Alan Weir

Barrhead