Drive to a second independence referendum looks unstoppable - Lesley Riddoch

The drive towards a second independence referendum now looks unstoppable – and public disagreement over strategy at the SNP conference is, strangely enough, one of the surest signs.

Thousands to march in pro-independence rally in Glasgow

Yes-supporting Scots survey 2021 and see a perfect storm brewing - a combination of life-changing, status-quo destroying events around Brexit, the final stages of the pandemic (hopefully), the start of a transition from fossil fuels and ‘build back better’ as we start paying back the bills for Covid.

Is it wise or democratically defensible that these crucial generational decisions will taken for Scotland by a man whose grasp of metaphor is as wobbly as his grasp on policy - tangled in verbal and metaphorical barbed wire, with disastrous consequences for all of us?

Who in Scotland wants a Boris-shaped future - because without seizing the moment after May’s elections and obtaining an Edinburgh Agreement that lets the Scottish Government decide when it’s safe to hold indyref2 - that’s what you are going to get.

Who in their right minds wants a man and a party, whose instincts and philosophy have driven catastrophe, cronyism and a betrayal of key workers - who wants this British government to shape Scottish society and future prosperity for decades to come?

The stakes in 2021 are as high as they possibly could be. There is no safe option - no ‘certainty’ even for business elites. The debate about indyref2 is not a personality-led competition between leaders or an arid constitutional argument about a 300-year-old union. It has become much more - Scotland’s best chance to depart from an isolationist, market-led British state, save ourselves and start the hard task of transforming a social democratic culture into actual political institutions, priorities and strategic decisions.

If the moment of decision was not so close, if the stakes were not so high, folk would not be so willing to break the habits of a lifetime and insist on wide-ranging, deep debate at SNP conference - over the strategy for indyref2 and the kind of state Scotland is about to become.

These are massive issues - too big to be left to half a dozen folk in the SNP leadership.

That’s not to cast aspersions on their abilities, it is to remember the Declaration of Arbroath which reminds all who govern Scotland, that they do so only with the people’s consent.

The problem for the SNP is that it represents many people. As a government it must be responsive to the voters of Scotland - all of them. As a party - it must respond to its members and as the central focus of the Yes movement, it must try to connect with an active, probing, questioning and multifarious movement. It’s an impossible task and the temptation has been to demand more and more central control.

This week is likely to see some moves in the opposite direction.

The biggest talking point on the final day of conference may not be Nicola Sturgeon’s keynote speech this afternoon, but the result of strongly contested elections for the National Executive Committee later. The party’s Common Weal Group has put forward a list of 18 candidates who’ve signed a manifesto calling for more internal party democracy. If they and other ‘dissenters’ prosper, it will be an early warning to the leadership that it must adapt style and become more collaborative in the run up to the second independence vote.

If ‘reform’ candidates lose, the leadership can justly conclude that the majority of members haven’t the stomach for a fight, even one that gives the rank and file more say.

Whatever the result the NEC elections will offer some clarity before an eventful 2021 begins.

Meanwhile, the Yes movement is getting its own house in order with a national membership organisation to be launched in early January. Elections for a steering committee are underway now after two online weekend gatherings attended by 600 people. The results announced on Thursday - will prompt a final decision on Yes Alba as a name. What won’t be up for debate is the organisation’s purpose - not creating policy, nor endorsing one political party or becoming foot soldiers in the May elections. Yes Alba will be a campaigning organisation which aims to get Yes supporters mobilised effectively and to give a louder voice to the grassroots - which means Nicola Sturgeon could stop worrying about restless foot-soldiers and focus all her efforts on the vital job of tackling Covid.

Of course, that won’t allay leadership anxiety about the impact of public differences on support for independence. But perhaps that is overstated.

Take the latest prominent convert to Yes, professor of public policy at Glasgow University and special adviser to three Labour First Ministers, Duncan Maclennan who wrote this weekend; “The compassion and creativity I hear in meeting after meeting seems much more

important for our future than the contingent and confused flows of resources and support from the British government. The strong collective identity and the creative energy of young

Scots are a better foundation for the future than defending the Barnett formula for ever.”

Perhaps the way a movement debates difference - not the complete and unnatural absence of dissent - is what convinces voters that a different, truly inclusive type of country is possible.

So, let a thousand flowers blossom as Scotland inches closer to the year that will determine all our futures.