SNP rebels have set out a nine-point plan to secure independence in response to a "half-hearted approach" from the party leadership, The National can reveal.
Activists from the Oban & Lorn, Tweeddale and Helensburgh branches, who have lodged an amendment to John Swinney’s independence resolution, have now set out the steps they believe will dissolve the Union.
Unlike Swinney’s motion, which calls for an SNP majority in Holyrood, the members insist that a majority of list votes for pro-independence parties would secure a mandate.
In a document seen by The National, they set out in detail how Scotland can “cease to be a partner in a voluntary union without the consent of the UK Government”.
It also takes a dig at the Scottish Government’s latest independence paper “Your Right to Decide”, which made the case that an SNP majority set precedent for a referendum.
They say the paper is “peppered” with references to a “voluntary union” and “sovereignty”.
“Yet the words sound hollow when the SNP leadership fails to deliver the power contained therein,” it states.
In a five-page document, to accompany their amendment which has not yet been confirmed for debate at the party conference, the rebels first set out that Holyrood holding a referendum and using a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) won’t work.
On proving an appetite for independence without a referendum, they reiterate that if the Holyrood list results show a “popular majority in favour of dissolving the Union”, then that is a sufficient mandate.
“It has the added benefit of legitimacy as, unlike a standalone referendum which opponents might boycott, opponents must contest a plebiscite election to win regional seats in the current Scottish Parliament,” it adds.
“A plebiscite election is a right to choose. Unlike the SNP leadership resolution, which is asking Westminster to let it happen, this step makes it happen.”
The activists add that “trust, camaraderie and a sense of purpose” must be restored to the independence movement and that while individual parties can contest seats, “they must all agree that every vote cast for these parties on the list vote is a mandate to deliver independence”.
The document is also critical of the current state of the SNP as an “organisation diminished” after 2014, citing halved membership and a “hollowed out” membership base. To fix this, they say, the independence movement needs to be mobilised.
Two key dates are also set out. May 7, 2026 – Holyrood election day – and May 1, 2027.
“If it fails to do so, then the Union is dissolved on 1 May 2027.”
To implement a mandate for independence, the rebels call for an independence delivery unit to be established, bringing in experts from across the movement on currency, taxation, defence and other areas.
They would “agree a framework and to do tasks to get us over the line of (first) securing a majority vote and (second) dissolving the Union using their individual and collective expertise”.
As the Scottish Parliament cannot legislate for independence, the group argues that a “new institution” should be created in the form of the provisional government of Scotland to provide “political legitimacy” and lay the legislative groundwork.
This would be made up of all independence-supporting MSPs elected in 2026 and “one hundred members chosen by the independence-supporting parties apportioned in terms of their share of the popular vote to deliver independence”.
They also say the funding for the two institutions should not be provided by the Scottish Government because “Unionists will complain” and that members should be unpaid, barring a "small secretariat" who would be paid.
On “dissolution day”, they say the provisional government will become the government of Scotland and “declare the Union dissolved”, while the Scottish Parliament will be “taken over” by the parliament of Scotland, “comprising all members of the former devolved parliament".
International recognition, the rebels say, “is important”, and they cite the Vienna Convention of 1983 for establishing “rules of sharing of liabilities and assets between dissolving states where no agreement exists”.
The document also argues that private agreements and contracts between Scottish-based businesses and multinational companies “will not cease on dissolution day”.
It ends by stating that Swinney’s resolution is “leisurely and indeterminate and will provide no respite to our suffering population”.
“It’s lack of a date and mechanism to deliver Independence is half-hearted and deferential,” it adds. “The proponents of it know that it doesn’t deliver independence without the consent of the UK Government, and it proposes no sanction on the UK Government if it doesn’t consent.”
