(Scottish Political Archive, University of Stirling. Now there lies an opportunity in weaning the SNP off oil and onto a Green New Deal, which was the central plank of the Scottish Greens’ 2021 election campaign. The incredibly resonant ‘It’s Scotland’s Oil’ campaign was a major part of the party’s breakthrough Westminster success in 1974. Historically, the Scottish National party’s rise was on the back of the discovery of North Sea oil. But the removal of a leftwing Scottish Labour leader, Richard Leonard, at the behest of big donors, as well as Keir Starmer’s resolute opposition to the Scottish people having the final say in their own destiny, suggests Labour has decided that in Scotland it is against progressive change.įor the environment, this creates opportunities. The era of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party brought some disruption to that pattern, and there are many in Labour, including my fellow North East Scotland MSP Mercedes Villalba, who are definitely part of the solution. The dividing line is the constitution those on the independence side are coalescing around progressive ideas, while those on the unionist side tend toward more conservative ideas. At last, questions of power, ownership and justice came to the fore, replacing the managerial politics of the pre-2014 era.Īgainst this history, the 2021 Scottish election marked the further alignment of two blocs in Scottish politics. As such, constitutional politics in Scotland offered a rupture with the dead hand of neoliberal consensus. But far from being a distraction from issues of social and environmental justice, the independence referendum created a popular fomentation that prompted firm action, such as the fracking ban. Of course we need to renew our movements, and there is much to be said about how to do that in Scotland. The independence movement was exactly that. Immediately after the referendum, Women for Independence won a campaign to prevent the building of a new women’s prison.įor me, politics is about movements that can bring about radical change. Moreover, the referendum spun off a variety of social movements that have campaigned for everything from tenants’ rights – the superb Living Rent union – to fossil fuel divestment. Unlike the Brexit referendum, it looked outwards rather than seeking a return to some imagined past. The 2014 campaign moved ideas like a universal basic income from the margins of debate to the centre. We wanted – and want – to build a Scotland on a very different set of principles to those deployed by the UK Treasury. Nothing about Scottish independence would make it less likely that progressives in Scotland would work for change with those in the remaining UK. Indeed, part of the reason why the Labour party has been so unsuccessful at reforming the British state is that it has mistaken centralisation for solidarity for too long. That road was never meant to divide us from progressives elsewhere. But by 2014, Labour’s 13 years in power had delivered little change, and the prospect of another Conservative government meant that any progress would be on hold for another five years.įor those of us who had tried and tried again to shift the Westminster system, independence represented an alternative road. From failed promises of reforming the House of Lords and the electoral system to the ongoing overinvestment in London and the south-east driven by the Treasury, there is a lot that needs to change. She remembered their earlier conversation and asked him: “How could you see that everything would go wrong?”įor those of us who campaigned for a radical Scottish independence, we saw the opportunity to shake Westminster from centuries of privilege-drenched complacency. Years later, my friend met the same person just after Boris Johnson had unlawfully prorogued parliament. His answer was that the Westminster system was hopelessly outdated, and impervious to change. She asked him what independence would fix. He tells the story of how he met an old friend who stopped to talk about the referendum. On the day before the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, a friend of mine was out campaigning.
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