Open Letter from Jim Sillars: To Snp Members & The Broader Independence Movement

I am going to be blunt, because the future of the Scottish nation is at stake.

Dear fellow members of the SNP, and those who are not members but are with it on independence,

I am going to be blunt, because the future of the Scottish nation is at stake. This letter argues that the Nicola Sturgeon speech of 31st. January, implicitly admitting that the last three years has delivered nothing on her repeated demand for indyref2, shows the clamant need for a new strategy. There is a better way to achieve independence than misleading people to believe an early indeyref2 is possible, or sensible, in a year when the party will meet is own Ides of March.

But let me start with bursting the belief Boris Johnson has, that he can block independence by constantly quoting Alex Salmond’s ‘once in a generation,’ and Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘once in a lifetime,’ from 2014. That has a limited shelf life, because that campaign was not simply an SNP one. There were numerous groups taking part, not affiliated to the SNP, not consulted by the SNP on anything, and did not campaign on its White Paper. They have no reason to feel bound by what that party’s leaders said.

Time after time on platforms, speaker after speaker would rise and begin: ‘This is not about Alex Salmond and his White Paper’ and go on to set out their own distinctive different views. After I read Alex’s and Nicola’s statements, I made clear when speaking at public meetings that they did not speak for me. Others did the same.

A number of the present group of SNP MPs took part in the 2014 referendum while not in the SNP, only joining afterwards. It is time for them to start telling Johnson they are not bound by those quotations. That would be his first lesson in contemporary Scottish affairs.

The result in 2014 was a numerical defeat, not a political defeat. The cause of independence has deep roots. The campaign was more like a national teach-in, when people were persuaded to see Scotland in a different light from the weak, too poor, too small, nation that unionist propaganda has punted for generations. When Winnie Ewing won the 1967 Hamilton by-election, she said a candle had been lit in the dark. 2014 cast a bigger wider light, and there is no chance of it going out.

The independence movement has a great advantage over Boris Johnson. He doesn’t understand Scotland. He has no political traction up here, and will make mistakes because he doesn’t understand. He thinks he can make us into unionists by being clever with UK money. The independence movement is in a superior position, because we were born and raised within our nation, and know it better than anyone who was formed politically in the London bubble.

I don’t now, and have never underestimated Boris Johnson. A man who could beat Ken Livingstone in London, and win re-election as Mayor, get Brexit done, and win a substantial majority in rUK, is not the blustering fool so many describe him as. But, he doesn’t know us, and has no feel for the Scottish pulse. Therein lies his weakness.

The need to cease lapping up empty rhetoric: Thinking before marching

At present, it would appear that all the movement can think about is getting indyref2 and winning it. But we have to think deeper than that. How we get it, and how we win it, will set the mould of Scottish politics for generations to come. We have a responsibility that goes beyond just winning. Nation building matters.

We are a small nation in numbers. Too small to contain any level of bitterness as a legacy of a winning referendum. Our aim should be to gain independence with a majority so substantial that the minority unionists accept its legitimacy, and feel able to join with us in making the new Scotland one we can all be proud of, and all feel part of.

After being misled, and many wilfully misled, into believing indyref2 could be achieved in 2020, SNP members , and the wider movement, will have to cease lapping up empty rhetoric, however attractive to the ear, and engage in a re-assessment of strategy and tactics; which includes examining the respective strengths of our side and the unionist one; and taking cool, calm, careful account of the new geopolitical factors now in play since Brexit. The application of intellectual rigour is necessary.

When I called for you to stop marching and start thinking, I was rebuked by some who saw it as insulting or lacking appreciation of the depth of desire you have to achieve independence. I chose those words carefully, and deliberately, because there are occasions when it is necessary to be painfully blunt, to bring people to face a reality, so that energy is better directed elsewhere.

I don’t deride demonstrations. They are important in a democracy, demonstrating to those taking part, and to others, their collective strength; and they assist the government to gauge the strength and depth of opinion on any given issue. I recall a demonstration against unemployment after the 1983 general election, when the man beside me said ‘we are not marching, we are trudging like a defeated army.’ He was right. Thatcher’s de-industrialisation was well underway, and as we marched we knew we were already being defeated, despite the large Labour group of MPs not long elected. One look at us, and any Tory knew there was nothing to worry about.

It would be more effective if there was a single giant demonstration, every year in September, in Edinburgh. That should be the high point of a year of activity designed to educate, and build organisational strength. If such a demonstration is organised, it would advance the cause, not retard it, especially if it was free of gross insults to those who do not yet agree with us.

This is just an aside, but an important one. Do those who carry banners calling Tories ‘scum’ and worse, never consider that to the rest of society they may be painting a picture, not of a harmonious, united, independent Scotland, but of a nasty country where the basis of all future political debate will be whether people were in the Yes or No camps? The other side in this debate are not enemies, they are opponents — we have to win converts to build the majority we need.

The new paradigm created by Brexit: Time to put the EU Vote into a proper perspective

‘Scotland is being torn out of the EU against its will,’ is a classic example of an untruth repeated so often, many take it to be true, and some believe it because they want it to be true. Another, again repeated often in the House of Commons from SNP benches, is that the ‘Scottish people are sovereign.’

Let us take the latter first, because it has a bearing on the former. In the whole of Scottish history the ‘people’ have never been sovereign, except on one occasion. That was on polling day 2014, between 7am and 10pm. At the end of those 15 hours of sovereignty, the people decided to give it away, and remain in the UK. I regretted it, you regretted it, but that was the decision. The whole purpose of independence is to get back the sovereignty we gave away, and keep it.

The result in 2014, did not mean that independence was a ‘dream that would never die.’ What the 45% for Yes meant was that this was no dream, but a goal that we had seen, touched, and one that we believed we could achieve next time — that the campaign would not die or lie dormant, but keep reaching for that goal.

Then came the unexpected: an EU referendum, and a Brexit victory. A new paradigm, a complete shifting of the power blocs, something the independence movement needs to address.

The question on the ballot paper did not refer to Scotland, but whether the UK would leave or remain in the EU — the UK being the state the majority in 2014 had decided to be part of. So the decision before the Scots was not whether Scotland alone should remain in the EU, but whether the UK should or should not. By going south of the border to campaign for Remain, Nicola Sturgeon underlined the legitimacy of that ballot. She was quite happy to endorse and repeat the forecasts of destruction and disaster that would follow a Leave result, which poured out of the UK treasury, and London based think tanks — all of whom said the same about independence in 2014, and will do the same next time.

But the deadly mistake was made by Nicola Sturgeon the day after the EU result was known, to immediately call for indyref2. Of course she was right that circumstances had changed, but just how much of a change could not be known until Brexit is complete, and so, until then, there can be no rational deployment of the new case for independence in the new circumstances, which take us well beyond relationships only with the EU

Two cries have been heard from the SNP leadership: that Scotland is being torn from the EU against our will, and that we shall re-enter the EU come what may. The first is wrong, the second absurd.

The first is based on the false proposition that the unionist element of the 62% who voted for the UK to remain in the EU, will choose going back in even if it means quitting the UK. There is no evidence for that. It is an untested issue.

The second is absurd because the configuration of the political and trade relationship between the UK and the EU, and the UK with third party states, cannot be known until the full Brexit details are revealed and studied. There can be no rational new case (and new case it will be) for independence until that unknown is known. The SNP statements about jumping ‘off a cliff’ are apt, but only as a description of its own policy.

It is the substance of the Brexit-plus future, and the dynamics flowing from it, that the independence movement will need to examine, and choose a future course to put before the people.

That future will depend mainly on what emerges from the trade deals undertaken by the UK government, not only with the EU, but with the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Deals with the latter four would enable entry into the trans-Pacific 11 member state trade organisation which accounts for 15% of word GDP. Only when all the deals are known, and the details become available, will we be able to decide whether in our own interest, it is better to adhere to them rather than to re-enter the EU.

Whatever the final deals that emerge, there is one salient factor that cannot be avoided — rUK is by far our largest market for goods and services, 60%. That market, and the rules of access to it, within the framework of whatever deals are done with the EU, and others, will be central to any case we make for independence if we are to win it. Loose talk by SNP Ministers about a border with England is not wise, to say the least.

Is the SNP love affair with the EU justified?

I am the architect of ‘Independence in Europe.’ I first produced the idea, as a Labour MP in 1975, after the EEC referendum. It was not adopted SNP policy until late 1980s. Then, the EEC had only 12 member states, all with a substantial range of vetoes that could be applied when any one of them objected to any proposal they saw as against their national interests.

Over the years, the EEC has become the European Union with 27 member states. Most of the veto powers have been eliminated and replaced by qualified majority voting — a weighted vote in which Scotland would have 1.1% , just like Denmark. In short, the organisation has changed fundamentally since the 1980s. But the SNP has never engaged in a re-assessment of the policy.

It is not my intention here to re-state why I no longer believe ‘Independence in Europe’ offers the kind of sovereign future that is sensible for Scotland. But there are three points I think worth noting as reasons for the party to re-assess the policy. First, joining the EU does not mean we would ‘pool’ our sovereignty with others. In the EU a state ‘transfers’ sovereignty to a central power, and that transfer is permanent and reached a new stage in the Lisbon treaty. To gain sovereignty from one incorporating union, and then give it away to another of the same ilk?

The second arises out of the nature of the EU as set out in its foundation treaties. That is the superiority in law of capital over labour. In the Viking case, the European Court of Justice had to decide whether, by striking, workers could prevent an employer moving his operation to another member state, to employ cheaper labour, while they lost their jobs. The ECJ stated that while there was a right to strike, capital had a superior right to move to where it likes.

The Laval judgement by the ECJ upheld the right of an employer, to move one set of lower paid workers to a project in another member state, and in doing so ignore and undermine local trade union agreed wage levels. The ECJ was not wrong in law in either case. It is clear in the EU treaties that capital is superior to labour. Is this not something those on the Left in the SNP should look at?

The third arises from the SNP Ministers’ claims that we must go back into the EU to protect the present set of social rights and workers’ rights. What kind of people does the SNP leadership thing we are? Would we, when sovereign, not be able to create a decent society, with outstanding levels of rights, all on our own? Why would we need to be in the EU to do that?

Is EFTA an option?

Had the UK remained in the EU, joining EFTA and becoming a sovereign member of the European Economic Area, would have been a better option for Scotland than membership of the EU. That would give unrestricted access to the EU market, but retain much more sovereignty than is possible as an EU state. That was the position I advanced in the EU referendum in a pamphlet ‘The Logical case: Why ScotLeave.EU makes most sense.’

It is often said that Norway simply has to do what the EU decides and has no say in the matter. That is wrong. The EEA treaty, signed in 1994, has 129 Articles and a number of protocols. The treaty gives Norway, for example, rights when EU policy is being formulated, and does not bind it to every rule that emerges from Brussels. As I pointed out in 2016, between 2000 and 2013, Norway adopted 4,724 EU laws, whereas each EU member state adopted 52,138. When the EU sought to extend its competence over energy in the North Sea, Norway, quoting the EEA treaty, said no.

But, again, until we know the full details of the Brexit-plus trade deals, it is no more wise to opt for EFTA now than any other course. But it wold be wise for the Scottish government to set up talks with EFTA, just in case it is the road we may want to go down when judging what is in our best state interests. An independent Scotland, with a similar economy and North Sea interests, would strengthen EFTA.

What do we do now?

The year 2020 could be one that produces unexpected events. We already experienced one in February, and the month of March promises more. This is not the year to fight for a referendum that is unobtainable legally, or to opt for one held illegally that will take the movement into a political quagmire. Nor is it one to waste effort and money mounting a legal challenge to Boris Johnson’s decision to deny a S30. Read the Miller and prorogation cases decided in the Supreme Court, where a legal challenge would eventually end up with another lecture on the supremacy of the sovereignty of Parliament.

That the UK government holds the power over a S30, is a given. It will not transfer it to Holyrood this year. But politics can overcome legality, provided the political power is of such a strength that it cannot be ignored. The independence movement is not near that level now. In what is likely to be a bad year for the SNP, with knock-on consequences for the movement, this is when hard work, unseen, can be carried out with the aim of building the political power that, in time, will overcome Westminster’s hold on S30.

Build is the operative word.

1 .A single national organisation needs to be created, with funds raised for that purpose; and each present component of the independence movement affiliated to the central body. The SNP should be part, the electoral wing, but only part.

2. The objective should be sufficient funds to set up a central office with no more than three of a staff; with a full time organiser in the Highlands, North East, Dundee, Fife, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Borders and Ayrshire & Galloway.

3. Reconstitute Academics for Independence. They represent a tremendous resource base, and better than any others could monitor the Brexit and other negotiations.

4. Create an ability to gather and use data to a) identify and record solid independence supporters; b) identify soft No voters; c) identify those who are doubtful; d) identify those utterly opposed to independence. That way we shall know where our positive vote lies, where and how we should concentrate our educational efforts to convert, and where the hardest work has to be done.

The inside story of elections here and in the USA, has shown how the gathering of data, its analysis and application, enables campaigns to be more effective than in previous decades. This methodology does not replace canvassing, meeting and talking to people, but the information gained from data analysis is essential if we are to build the vote and turn it out on the key polling day. The unionists are already using data analysis, and we need to match them. I have asked Calum Miller, who is an expert on this subject, to follow this letter with an article on how important data is now, and how it is used.

This is hard work below the radar. It is a slog, both to raise the necessary funds, and to get the organisation under way and operative. Bur if we are to be successful, we need to create and sustain a logistical system upon which a public campaign can be conducted when the time is ripe.

And be prepared for the unexpected

The UK government has the power to legislate, organise and run a referendum that sets the question of independence or an alternative.

It was Westminster legislation, and action, that gave Scotland the referendum on whether or not to create the Scottish parliament. The precedent is there. The UK power to legislate on any matter for Scotland is in S28(7) of the 1989 Act, which the SNP supported.

If one listens and reads the opinions expressed in the English Tory papers, there are two schools of thought on how to deal with the ‘Scottish question.’ First, is for the UK government to assert its right to create and spend on projects in Scotland, without reference to Holyrood. Some have talked of ‘love bombing’ us.

The other idea is to recognise that devolution has not given the Scottish Parliament the powers needed to make a difference to economic performance, and so they should be increased in what is described as a ‘federal’ relationship between Scotland and rUK. This is meant to block independence.

The first option seems to be the favoured one in Downing Street. Whatever comes our way from that, it will not undermine the independence movement, because our argument isn’t that we want UK money spent here on UK projects, it is that we want the powers of sovereignty. But Johnson is likely to try it.

When he realises that will not work, he has an alternative. While Scots have been marching in pursuit of indyref2, down south they have spent since 2014 in thinking about how to keep us in the union, through concessions on powers. The Constitution Reform Group has produced an Act of Union Bill, tabled by Lord Lisvane, the former Chief Clerk of the House of Commons. It sets out what might be styled as a ‘federalist’ reform of the UK constitution –with Scottish, English, Welsh Parliaments and Northern Ireland retaining its Assembly.

I doubt it has any future as there seems no appetite in England for any change in the way it is governed, and its complexity is probably unworkable; but its references to a Scottish Parliament with greater powers and institutional influence, is what has prompted the ‘federalist’ ideas punted by a number of Tory opinion formers. We would tend to call it ‘Devo Max plus.’

When the love bombing fails, there will be a temptation for the UK government to give us a choice between independence and Devo max plus, in a referendum ran by it. Or, if we succeed in forcing indyref2, Johnson might insist as a condition of acceptance, that Devo Max plus is on the ballot paper. Unfortunately there is a precedent: Alex Salmond suggested this to David Cameron who rejected it, because he thought No would win easily, as Yes was then only at 29%. I don’t think many in the movement have thought of that possibility, but it is there, and we should be prepared for it. It is after all, the British state fighting for its life, we are dealing with.

I hope you have taken the trouble to read from first word to last, because I have sought to set out reasons why the desire for this nation to reach for and achieve full sovereignty will require us, in what may well be a dispiriting year, to hold our nerve, maintain unity, widen and deepen organisational strength, and better prepare ourselves intellectually and in policy, for the next phase of the struggle.

Yours aye

Jim Sillars