THE “Celtic exit” is not just happening at government level, it's inspiring the grassroots too.
That's what Believe in Scotland founder Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp told my colleague Steph Brawn today on the podcast .
MacIntyre-Kemp, for those unaware, is the CEO of Business for Scotland and founder of the pro-independence organisation, Believe in Scotland.
Believe in Scotland is the umbrella organisation which facilitates local grassroot groups who campaign for Scotland's future outwith the Union. It's a big undertaking, with hundreds of activists at a time (the record being 400) taking part in online calls to strategise and the national march they hold becoming a staple of the campaigning calendar.
Their online campaign is growing by the day and if you've received an independence leaflet or seen a stall with Saltires in the last few years, it's likely them.
Having followed and reported on Believe in Scotland going from strength to strength since the very beginning of my time at The National, I was more than interested to find out what MacIntyre-Kemp had to say about the Celtic Alliance.
When asked if Believe in Scotland was going to be working with Welsh and Northern Irish grassroots movements, MacIntyre-Kemp said he was open to it and has already put out feelers about potential simultaneous rallies across the three nations.
He shared: "At one of our members meetings the other day, someone actually said, we should have an event on simultaneously in each of these three countries.
"It'd have to be Ireland as opposed to Northern Ireland, I think, for security reasons but we might do a marching rally in all three places at once."
Having already reached out to some organisers in Wales and Northern Ireland already, the group have reached out again with the proposal. But, he also shared that some of the most developed relationships the group has at the moment are with movements beyond these islands.
“We had a like a two-hour Zoom call with Omnium Cultural, who are the Catalan sort of opposite number of ourselves. They've got um something like 60,000 paid members 80 offices throughout uh Catalonia."
Those connections, he said, are about learning from others who have built mass movements over decades.
"They are not just an independence campaigning organisation, they campaign in many, many areas, just just as we do.
"We campaign on the well-being pension and well-being economics and they promote Catalan culture and Catalan language, which again is something that we try to do as well with our Creating Scotland cultural events and also having Scots language readings at our marches and rallies," he shared.
While stressing Believe in Scotland are rightly "very focused on Scottish independence, but we're open to collaborate", MacIntyre-Kemp also said the new political reality across these islands has fundamentally changed the independence debate – and made it far harder for any UK Prime Minister to keep saying no to Scotland.
“The key thing is that for Keir Starmer or any prime minister to say no to Scotland is one thing. To say no to three quarters of the leaders of the United Kingdom when they approach together and demand clarity on the constitutional arrangements for the UK is something completely different."
And he insisted Believe in Scotland had already seen this coming.
He said: “We wrote our suggested new path to independence last year, and we put in there that Plaid would actually win in Wales, that Sinn Féin would be leaders there, and the three Celtic nations would be led. And we got pelters for it because Plaid were way down in the poll at that time.
"But I looked at Wales and I just thought, they're just behind us. They're just on the same road. The conditions that allowed the SNP to rise are now there in Wales, and so I predicted they would rise.”
That thinking has already been put directly to ministers in Edinburgh, with MacIntyre-Kemp presenting this to current First Minister John Swinney, former constitutional secretary Angus Robertson and deputy leader of the SNP Keith Brown alongside a few others at Bute House prior to the election.
"We were pretty much the first to talk about the Celtic exit, and I think that changes everything.
"I think that changes the constitutional question about the whole of the UK because it's more than just Scotland right now."
With the constitutional map is shifting, MacIntyre-Kemp said he also detects a change in mood within the movement itself. We've also seen this on our social media.
After a bruising few years, he shared that activists are starting to feel the wind at their backs again.
“Over the last couple of months, there's actually been a increase in the morale of the independence movement. I'm hearing it everywhere, in all my Zooms with the movement and with the members and all the talks I do, people are up for it.
"And that little spark can be turned into a fire," he said.
Asked directly whether that uplift is tied to the Celtic Alliance he does not hesitate.
“It's funny, I think that people do realise that it changes everything. People do realise that it changes the entire conversation around the UK.”
He goes on to predict we'll also be seeing an English independence movement. But you'll have to read Steph's piece for that story.
