The National:

This is from a newsletter from Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, called Reinventing Scotland. It explores the wellbeing economy. Sign up here to receive it straight to your inbox. 

IT'S impossible to write a column this week without reflecting on the passing of a giant of our movement.

For me, like many who share the dream of independence, Alex Salmond was a key reason I got into campaigning in the 90s. Brought up in England, I didn't really have an opinion on independence till I went to uni in Edinburgh. I saw Alex give a talk and he inspired me, moved my political compass, fuelling my growing interest in the economics of independence and I've been dedicated to the cause ever since.

Regardless of whether you agreed with all he did and said or not, it's hard to name a politician from modern Scottish or UK history who could match him in his prime.

Indeed it's worth noting despite that, first with Alex and then with Nicola Sturgeon, the independence movement possessed the politicians of their respective generations but neither could make the breakthrough Scotland needs. The institution of Westminster and the UK remains extremely adept at protecting itself, its cronies' access to privilege and indeed its ability to continue profiting from Scotland’s wealth through misinformation and scaremongering.

The dream will never die

Alex famously once said "the dream shall never die". He was right, but our challenge is to turn that dream into a deliverable plan.

To succeed we need a plan to win the people over to a new approach to winning independence and to stop flogging the dead horse of a referendum as the gold standard. That was a path that required to be exhausted but it's gone now. The UK will never offer another referendum because they know they will lose (heavily) if Scotland takes another good look at itself with all that has passed since 2014.

The Scottish Government shot itself in the foot by hiring a legal officer that didn’t think a referendum was within the powers of the Scottish Parliament and referring itself to the Supreme Court like a naughty school child being told to go see the headmaster. If the UK Government had taken the Scottish Government to court to stop a referendum, it would have been recognised as the attack on democracy that it truly was.

Turning the dream into a plan

There is only one way to deliver Scotland to independence and that is to create the conditions whereby independence can become the settled will of the Scottish people.

We don’t currently have that and the Noon/Dugdale plan of giving the power to hold a referendum to the Scottish Secretary is fundamentally stupid. Sure they have the seven-year rule in Ireland as part of the Good Friday Agreement but its still dependent on the Northern Ireland Secretary’s personal opinion that there is sustained support for it – in other words the Scottish Secretary could say “now is not the time” until the cows come home and wait till support diminishes.

Also if it's in the Scottish Secretary’s power then he also gets to pick the voter franchise, the date, the wording of the question ...

The three-pronged indy plan

1. We must facilitate a new national conversation on Scotland's future. A Citizens’ Convention, that seeks to engage the people through a positive and creative conversation about the ideal future they want for our nation. When we capture the hopes and dreams of the nation for a better Scotland we can create a manifesto for change and challenge Westminster to deliver against the needs and wants of the Scottish people.

When they can't then the people will see that independence is the only route to progress and it will become the settled will. Then and only then will a de-facto referendum route to independence command the support of the people.

2. Believe in Scotland, the grassroots-led independence campaign, will continue to be focused on increasing the nation’s ambition, matching our campaign to the values of the nation and leading on cultural change – not politics and policies.

(Image: PA)

This would be properly funded through grassroots fundraising. Because the Supreme Court would stop the Scottish Government funding a Constitutional Convention, constitutional preparation for independence will be the focus of our long-established Scottish Independence Congress, which will involve the wider Yes movement and pro-independence political parties.

The Independence Congress will not reinvent the wheel but complement the great work that has already been done by the many pro-independence think tanks and special interest groups.

3. There must also be a strong political arm of the independence movement, which is focused on independence and a wellbeing economic approach and is willing to compromise and form workable alliances ahead of a potential de facto referendum. It also needs to be in government and competent but championing independence, not just trying to mitigate the problems of the UK’s decline.

Studying the history of modern independence movements the successful ones are not wrought with infighting and politicians that couldn't work with one another – that is why we need a civic-led campaign, a Citizens’ Convention to define the dream and then challenge the Union to deliver against the the hopes and dreams of the Scottish people.

Westminster won’t deliver and they won't even try – when that is writ large for all the people to see, Unionist politicians and their institutions will become powerless to stop Scotland's march to independence.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is the CEO of Business for Scotland, the chief economist at the wellbeing economics think tank Scotianomics, the founder of the Believe in Scotland campaign, and the author of Scotland the Brief.