SCOTLAND NEEDS A REFERENDUM ON INDEPENDENCE NOW!

The news over the last few days that independence is the most popular constitutional option for the Scottish people will come as a surprise to some. In fact this reflects a consistent trend since devolution (the poll evidence is on our website) and it was the main reason for the formation of the non-party-political referendum campaign Independence First (http://www.independence1st.com/).

Independence First recently wrote to both the UK government and the Scottish Parliament calling for a democratic referendum for the people of Scotland on independence. After 300 years, surely the people of Scotland should be allowed a vote on whether they want the union to continue or not?

The Scottish Parliament responded: “Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 defines matters reserved to the UK Parliament. [According to this] the government of the United Kingdom is responsible for considering fundamental changes to the devolution framework.” The Scottish Office in London stated: “… the UK Parliament is sovereign and it is for Parliament to decide whether to hold a referendum on any particular issue — and what the terms should be.”

These answers are pretty much what we expected, and utterly unacceptable. The Scottish Parliament wants to pass the buck, while Westminster does not even recognise that there is a problem. In England, Parliament may be sovereign, but in Scotland it is the people. So what are we going to do about it? In Independence First’s case, we plan to do quite a lot, and we hope you, the reader of this article will help.

While Independence First has probably not yet impinged on public consciousness, we have quietly and carefully been doing something very important — uniting the entire independence movement. This, we hope, will be obvious on 30 September, the date of our first march for independence, through the heart of Edinburgh, to end outside our temporary parliament.
The Scottish Green Party officially supports the campaign and will be speaking at our rally on the 30 September, as will speakers from the SSP, Solidarity and the Scottish National Party. The Free Scotland Party, the Communist Party of Scotland, The Scottish Enterprise Party, The Celtic League, The Scottish Independence Party and the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement have also officially expressed support.

Furthermore, Tommy Sheridan MSP, the SSP’s Carolyn Leckie MSP, Colin Fox MSP and Alan McCombes, SNP MSPs Stewart Maxwell and Sandra Whyte, and independent MSP Campbell Martin (who is also speaking at our rally) have added their names to the campaign. The Scottish Independence Convention, whose meetings IF representatives attend is also officially backing our rally. In short, every Scottish independence-supporting party and pro-independence political organisation has backed our call for a democratic referendum on independence for the people of Scotland.

In the run-up to the march and rally of 30 September, Independence First will distribute 10,000 leaflets in Scotland’s major population centres and The Federation of Student Nationalists and Young Scots for Independence will also be notifying everyone on their text referendum supporters’ list.

We believe a strong turnout will provide the much-needed “boot-up-the-backside” the Scottish executive appears to require to take the independence debate seriously.

To attempt to show the enormous latent support for independence we have also launched an e-petition through the Scottish Parliament (posted by Neil Caple National Convenor, on behalf of Independence First). This calls for the Parliament to consider and debate what moves it could make to ensure the early presentation of a referendum on self-determination to the people of Scotland (http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=123).

In the expectation that none of these efforts will have any effect on the unionist-led executive, we will also attempt to influence the outcome of the next election. In the next few weeks, leading artists, writers and musicians will endorse a “one-million-pledges-for-independence” campaign.

This campaign will call for one million Scots to give their support, in both the first and second votes, to parties supporting independence. We believe this figure would be well within the reach of the pro-independence parties and enough to swing the election in favour of independence.

The campaign includes people from various walks of life — political activists of all shades as well as those who have no interest in traditional politics — united by the belief that without independence no substantial progress can be made in Scotland. We are determined not to be divided by the details of our political convictions but to concentrate our energies on turning up the pressure for a referendum on this issue.

Next year is the three-hundredth anniversary of the treaty of union, a perfect time to reconsider whether the British state suits our interests. We don’t think it does, and we believe that a democratic referendum will prove that the people of Scotland, as a whole, agree with us.

Joe Middleton is the Media Officer for Independence First.