Stephen Maxwell is the Treasurer of the Scottish Independence Convention.
SNP members in Edinburgh South have long consoled themselves at election times with the maxim that if they were to win their seat then the SNP could win every seat in Scotland.
Yesterday morning that consoling mantra came true – as good as. Our candidate Jim Eadie, unknown in the seat six months ago, went straight past all the three unionist parties who had traditionally dominated the seat to take it for the SNP. And while the SNP did not capture all the seats in Scotland, as if doing its best to follow the Southern script it took sixty nine out of the one hundred and twenty nine seats in the Parliament to secure an absolute majority. “Historic” “game changing”, “transformational” were just some of the superlatives applied to the outcome.
Alex Salmond wasted no time in exploiting this most sensational of all his campaigning victories. Two hours after the final result he was laying down markers to shocked Westminster politicians – a beefing up of the economic powers in the Scotland Bill, the transfer to Scottish Ministers of the Scottish functions of the Crown Estate Commissioners and an independence referendum in the second half of the five year term of the new Parliament.
Supporters of the Independence Convention could not have asked for more. The Convention was formed in 2005 to provide a forum through which the then three independence parties – SNP , Scottish Socialist Party and Scottish Greens – along with unaffiliated supporters could collaborate in developing and promoting the case for independence in a referendum. The election of the first SNP Government in 2007 put a referendum firmly on the political agenda until a combination of the Government's minority status and the opposition parties' disdain for the democratic right of the Scottish people pushed it off again. With the anti-independence parties reduced to just forty seven members in the new Parliament against seventy two pro-independence members a referendum is now assured.
But that is all that is assured. The occasion of the SNP's greatest triumph is also the moment of its greatest peril. Votes that came as easily as the swinging LibDem votes can just as easily swing away. The new Government faces a major challenge in funding its spending commitments when its block grant from Westminster will be in decline for the next four years. The Scottish economy is effectively in recession with national output some 6% lower than before the 2007 credit crunch. Recovery continues to be slow and fitful. The new Scottish Government faces a major challenge in keeping the trust of its new voters through three years or more of cuts and slow growth before an independence referendum is held.
That is one reason why the independence cause cannot rely on the Government to do all the campaigning for a Yes vote. Another is that it will need all the time available before a referendum to persuade a sceptical Scottish public. Government Ministers with urgent agendas will simply not have time to devote to a long campaign.
The Scottish National Party, as opposed to Government, will be eager to campaign but its effectiveness will depend crucially on the standing of the Government. And its capacity to clarify some of the unresolved issues around independence – notably on the currency and defence – is uncertain given the current centralisation of policy making within the SNP.
The campaign for a Yes vote must start early and build as broad a base as possible. This is where the Scottish Independence Convention can make its contribution. Even though the SSP and its Solidarity split off have faded and the Scottish Greens have been frustrated in their ambition to recover the level of representation they enjoyed in the 2003-7 Parliament the Convention continues to offer an independent and open platform from which to promote public debate on the opportunities, challenges and requirements of Scottish independence across Scottish civil society.
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