TOMMY Sheppard’s useless analysis of the SNP’s election fiasco and his haywire plan for future success have been rightly excoriated in these pages. But some of the criticism itself displays faults that are prevalent in the independence movement, but could be fatal to the cause.
Let me take as an example the otherwise fine letter of Jim Taylor (Long Letter, August 13, SNP’s tippy-tappying approach to indy simply will not cut it), in which he makes three statements which do not hold up.
The first is “Westminster has no intention of ever allowing Scotland to secede from the Union”. It is perfectly true that Westminster does not want Scotland to leave, but the notion that it has the power to prevent it is quite unfounded. It is given no such power by any law or constitutional provision.
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The UK is not a country which forbids secession, and if the people of Scotland were to vote for it in a formal, legal and democratic setting, London would have no stateable basis whatsoever to gainsay it.
No applicable barrier has ever been identified, so it is up to those who maintain that Westminster does hold a preventative power to set out clearly and explicitly what that presumed barrier is, and their authority for so maintaining. As far as I am aware, no-one has ever done so, and it is beyond weird how deeply the false notion has got into in our skulls. It is a heresy on the very idea of Scottish independence.
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The second is “We need to foment a constitutional crisis by our indy-supporting MPs walking away from ... Westminster”. We need create no crisis. If the SNP had turned the election into a proper plebiscite, which they could easily have done with an appropriate, brief manifesto seeking a democratic head-count majority for Scotland to leave the Union, and had obtained a 50%-plus result for Yes, that would have given them virtually every Scottish seat.
The Union is one of parliaments. It was Scotland’s own MPs who took the country into it, and the only body with the requisite legal and constitutional power to reverse that step is their modern counterparts and the supreme representatives of the people of Scotland, our MPs. No crisis required, merely the vote, and the action (though by that stage the action may not actually be needed, since London would likely come on board at the end, bringing Scottish independence about by an agreed settlement rather than over London’s head).
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The third is “The Scottish Parliament should repeal the Act of Union and take back ownership of our nation”. Holyrood is a devolved and subordinate body. It does not comprise the supreme representatives of Scotland, and is subject to UK law. The UK’s highest court has already interpreted Holyrood’s founding act as prohibiting the setting up of an indyref, because it is forbidden to pass legislation relating to the union of the kingdoms. The same court would class any attempt by the Scottish Parliament to repeal the Act of Union as bonkers, and that court has the final say as long as we remain in the Union.
So in essence the route to Scottish independence is perfectly clear, simple and open: run a successful plebiscite at a General Election and have independence declared by the intrinsic power of our MPs to do so. No crisis, no rebellion, no illegality, and no resort to imaginary or exotic recourse.
What we need is a party which will do that. The starting point is the fact that for years about half the population have been up for it, and still are. Mr Sheppard and his colleagues have failed Scotland in not seizing the golden opportunity that has been staring them in the face. Shame on them.
Alan Crocket
Motherwell
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