I rather hoped I could avoid writing this book. I had hoped that, after the referendum, the independence movement would stay connected and coherent enough that we would have a structure and a mechanism which would have allowed us to discuss the way forward. I’d hoped that I could feed my thoughts and ideas into that process. I have no desire to be publicly critical of the campaign we had or the position we have reached today. Nor do I want the future of the movement to be about one person’s thoughts or ideas.
For political, cultural, social, economic and democratic reasons, I remain a strong supporter of Scottish independence. As with many other people, I am impatient. I fear drifting into ‘if only’ territory, that very Scottish mindset which dwells on what might have been if only a historical battle, refereeing decision or vote had gone the other way. It is a comfortable place to be, ‘if only’; a place where we can feel sentimental about failure. For Scotland it is and has been a mindset which allows us to gain comfort in the face of defeat and provides an excuse for inaction and lack of progress.
It has an equally Scottish antidote – determination. I use determination to mean both the act of taking control (self-determination, to determine our way forward) and a thrawn, stubborn mindset which refuses to give up. It requires both meanings because we will require both attributes. We need a way forward which places the future in our hands and we need to recognise that we’re not going to get there by waiting and hoping.
I have worked in the field of professional political strategy for over 20 years now. In my judgement independence supporters have reached a critical point, one where we will either develop a plan and move purposely forward or we will allow our commitment to transforming Scotland to become a cultural signifier of our Scottishness like a tea towel printed with a list of our national inventors or a reproduction of an oil painting of a romantic reimagining of the Jacobite rebellion which we can hang on our walls. And just now I cannot see a plan.
So despite my hesitance, I decided to block out my diary for four days in May 2016, switch of phones and email and set out what I think constitutes the outline of a plan for a way forward. My opinions are very clearly not the last word on any of this. It is likely that you will find things in these pages with which you don’t entirely agree. You may find yourself agreeing in principle with parts of it but believing there may be a better way. It is simply an attempt to show that it is possible to see ways forward which take Scotland’s future out of the hands of fate and places them into our own hands. It is a book which aims to stimulate discussion and provoke other people’s ideas. I hope it can achieve that.
And I hope I can be forgiven for being a little critical at times – finger-pointing and blaming will get us nowhere, but we do need to be able to be calmly analytical about what worked and what didn’t work. It is certainly not meant to talk down the incredible efforts so many people have put in to getting us here.
I shall argue that we need to understand why our strategy didn’t quite work. I’ll argue that we need to look more intelligently at who is likely to be the No voters who can be won over to create a strong Yes majority (and spoiler alert – they are neither rich nor Tories and won’t be reached via right-of-centre dog whistles). I’ll argue that we must dispense of the opinion which seems to have settled around us that somehow you win referendums during referendums. I’ll suggest instead that a process of building up confidence in the case through diligent work and preparation is the key, and that we must get people used to change by setting a creative and imaginative domestic agenda. And I’ll propose that we must get everyone to look to their own skills so that we can be the best fighting machine possible when that next referendum comes.
Because at the heart of the book I will warn against the idea that an independent Scotland will be delivered by ‘triggers’, external events outwith our control which will fall in our lap and somehow make everything OK, deliver us a referendum and then win that referendum for us. It’s possible that will happen. To me, it just seems both unlikely and an awfully shoogly peg on which to hang our hopes. We have to have a way of creating our own trigger, our own mechanism for ensuring a referendum. For me, by far the best opportunity is the 2021 Scottish Election. That can provide a solid, unequivocal mandate for a referendum. And if we work between now and then to be ready, to win over people, we can hold that referendum quickly. We can have voted to be an independent nation by Christmas 2021. But we need to be sure, to do this right. As everyone knows, we cannot fail again or we really do fail for a generation.
One brief note if you are reading this and are a unionist. You’re probably not going to agree with an awful lot of this. In the end, I absolutely respect your view. I perfectly well understand your political, cultural and social reasons for identifying with Britain. I am a believer in pluralism – it would be a dull world if we agreed on everything. It is a shame that, in the end, one of us must lose. Of course, I hope it is you – but only so we can show you through the way we carry ourselves as a new nation in the world that you have nothing to fear and much to gain. I hope that you can recognise among the many things in these pages you don’t agree with that at least it is a constructive and even idealistic plan. It is not about tricking, scaring or bribing people into supporting independence, it is a call for supporters of independence to get their house in order and present a prospectus for an independent Scotland that deserves serious consideration and which makes a credible attempt to answer important questions.
So I may not particularly have wanted to write this book, but now that I have I hope that it can stimulate the debate I believe the Scottish independence movement needs to have if we are to move forward. But the debate must be inclusive and rapid. Time is running out if we want to have a second chance at persuading Scots to vote Yes in the near future. We do not have weeks or months to squander.
The ‘Scottish question’ remains unanswered. Everyone knows that, whether they pretend that this has been resolved for a generation or not. It will not answer itself. If you believe in independence, now would be a good time to start answering the big questions of what Scotland is and what it will be. Crossed fingers are neither a tool nor a weapon. It will take determination – or our future will be determined for us.