CAMPAIGNERS have dismissed the Scottish Government’s latest paper on achieving independence.
John Swinney unveiled a new publication on Friday setting out the argument for why Scots should be given a say on the country’s constitutional future.
The First Minister rehearsed arguments that an SNP majority at next year’s Holyrood election, which polls say will not be achieved, constitutes a mandate for another referendum.
The paper quotes from former prime ministers, including Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Theresa May, saying that the Scottish people should have the right to decide the country’s future, as well as drawing on other major political interventions to the same effect.
It also rehearses SNP arguments that Scotland should have a similar constitutional get-out clause as is afforded to Northern Ireland, where the Secretary of State should have the power to call a border poll if it is thought there is public appetite for one.
But campaigners have said that the SNP’s gambit will not achieve independence.
Robin McAlpine (above), the former director of the pro-independence think tank Common Weal, told The National: “We’re still running round and round in the belief that there is a procedural shortcut that will hand us a referendum without us doing any work.
“The last set of white papers amounted to ‘will you give us a referendum please’ and they said no. So this one says, ‘OK, but could you please give us a legally-binding constitution change that will force you to give us a referendum’.
“This really does not feel like progress to me. Countries throughout history who became independent because they issued white papers? Zero. It’s not that this is the wrong white paper, it’s that there isn’t a right white paper.”
Alba Party leader Kenny MacAskill (below) said he was “deeply disappointed” by Swinney’s press conference in Edinburgh to promote the release of the new paper.
He said: “We seem to have gone under John Swinney from a Claim of Right to a right to claim. The opportunity to yet again ask Westminster when we already know what the answer is going to be. We've been down that road. The referendum route is closed off to us.”
The UK Government responded to the paper by reiterating the Prime Minister’s opposition to another referendum.
MacAskill claimed that the Supreme Court ruling that blocked Nicola Sturgeon’s final attempt to secure indyref2 as first minister showed that “other democratic events could be used” to secure a referendum.
He added: “That's why we have to use the 2026 Holyrood Election as a plebiscite election – using the list vote as a list vote for Independence – and the Alba Party will be standing in that election as the Alba Party and a vote clearly for Scottish independence.”
The SNP have previously ruled out running on a joint ticket with other pro-independence parties as had been posited by Alex Salmond during his time as Alba leader.
Salvo and Liberation Scotland, the groups which are appealing to the United Nations to have Scotland "decolonised", said that they welcomed the Scottish Government's "assertion of the sovereignty of the Scottish people".
A statement from the groups added: "We are dismayed, however, that the Scottish Government appeals repeatedly to Westminster to respect a voluntary partnership and a union of equals. There is no such constitutional relationship.
"More troubling still is that the Scottish Government accepts this fiction and grounds its appeal in the force of a false constitutional position – on a definition which has no substance and which provides none of the rights inherent in a genuine partnership. The ‘partnership’ is a fabrication, its function only to disguise the true constitutional reality of the UK – domination by the continuing state of England."
They said that the Scottish Government should call on Westminster to acknowledge "the real constitutional status of Scotland – that of a dependency".
