Britain is Broken Politics

Plan A or Plan B for Scottish independence – how we get to Yes from 54%

Scotland has never been closer to independence than it is now. Since Business for Scotland’s Panelbase poll in July found 54% for independence, (backed up within a week by a poll in The Times), the narrative changed and Unionist panic has ensued. 

The mainstream media has generally accepted the Union is in dire trouble, if not already dead, and realises Boris Johnson is a significant liability to the cause. It’s all looking good for independence supporters but many are worried, obsessed even, over Westminster’s continuing claim they will say No to a Section 30 order. They worry that since the Scottish Government won’t hold a referendum without a Section 30 that the independence movement’s momentum will take us nowhere. 

That concern doesn’t even register with me. I want Westminster to keep saying No, indeed it’s a strategy I have been advising in meetings with Scottish Government Ministers since 2017.  

To clarify, the UK Government and leading Unionists in Scotland know they can’t just say No. They wouldn’t be panicking, arranging pseudo-state visits to Scotland and firing the Scottish Tory leader if they thought for one minute they could say No after an SNP majority and when independence support is near 60%. 

They understand something many independence supporters don’t; that to say No when Yes is significantly in the majority would drive independence support through the roof and kill any chance of saving the Union. It would be seen as so incredibly undemocratic that masses of undecided and persuadable No voters would switch sides and many committed Unionists would admit openly that Scotland has a democratic right to hold a referendum.

A year ago an SNP single party majority in Holyrood (with a strong referendum pledge in the manifesto) wasn’t guaranteed but now it looks highly likely and a Yes majority is a certainty. 60% for independence is also a number I predict will be within reach after Brexit hits in January 2021. 

The SNP Government has a clear strategy for getting to Yes, however, some doubt it will work. Let’s outline what that strategy looks like – Plan A. 

  1. Deal with COVID-19 as best we can with the powers of the Scottish Government – this will build credibility in the eyes of the undecided and the persuadable. 
  2. Wait till Brexit hits and people realise the UK is a busted flush, acting against Scotland’s economic and social interests; the UK is disintegrating before our eyes and every day more and more people are seeing that. They don’t need independence rammed down their throats, they are chewing it over themselves and liking the taste. 
  3. Put a commitment to holding a referendum with a Section 30 in the manifesto for Holyrood, get a single party majority and demand a Section 30. 
  4. With an undeniable mandate, the same one that triggered 2014, we hold a referendum and win. 
  5. With independence next May at 60% and a majority mandate on top of all the other election wins, we dare Westminster to say NO to a referendum – if they do, the Union will disintegrate one way or another and if they offer a Section 30 Yes wins convincingly – checkmate. 

“Ah but Gordon, they can keep saying No forever” – no, they can’t. Plan A is the democratic gold standard; when all democratic, legal and proper routes have been exhausted, only then do other ways to deliver independence become acceptable. It is only when the FM can say she wanted the democratic route but has been forced by Westminster’s undemocratic, dictatorial approach and by overwhelming public opinion to offer a Plan B that it becomes acceptable, both to undecided and persuadable voters and also, vitally, to the international community. 

Right now talking about Plan B is self-defeating. Can you imagine Douglas Ross’s delight to be given the opportunity to say: “Nicola Sturgeon wants a Catalonia situation, she is so obsessed with independence (during the worst health crisis in our lifetimes) she wants us to declare independence without a democratic vote”? Not only would the international community see Scotland as anti-democratic they would never recognise its independence and so no one would be able to trade with or accept its currency. 

Let’s get one thing straight, talking about Plan B when we don’t need a Plan B is nuts and a gift to the floundering Unionists. 

Two things you may not have considered  

England is moving towards independence. We polled 1,015 English based voters and found 49% supported English independence; within that, a majority of Conservative and Labour voters supported English independence. When Scottish independence gets ahead of the 55% NO vote in 2014, attitudes in England will change and there will come a time when establishing an English parliament will have significant political capital – and offer a ‘get out of jail free’ card to a PM that’s about the lose the Union. 

Westminster may then feel it has no choice but to negotiate Scotland’s independence in a way that works for both nations. If I were the UK Government looking at a Holyrood SNP majority and 60% Yes, I would seek to negotiate Scottish independence within a Council of the Isles (I would also invite Ireland). Hell, I might even offer Scotland favourable terms for a transitional period currency union.  

Such a path might seem ridiculous to you at 54% but at 60%, with a huge SNP Holyrood majority, ridiculous things become a possibility.

It’s a fluid situation and all options remain on the table but the focus of the SNP and the wider independence movement must be the democratic gold standard of a Section 30 following a renewed SNP or SNP/Green majority. For Westminster to deny the democratically stated will of the Scottish people would make itself an international pariah. 

There is no easy short cut to independence but some people don’t understand the practicalities, that such ideas are often unworkable and, outside the independence movement, highly unpopular. When you think that way it’s easy to the blame the SNP for inaction but (internal wrangling aside) it’s doing its bit in helping to move the polls by … well, by getting on with the day job. 

The Yes movement needs to do its bit, people must stop looking for short cuts and get on with the job of informing, educating and convincing the hundreds of thousands of people who are becoming newly undecided and persuadable of the benefits of independence.

About the author

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is the Founder and Chief Executive of Business for Scotland. Before becoming CEO of Business for Scotland Gordon ran a business strategy and social media, sales & marketing consultancy.

With a degree in business, marketing and economics, Gordon has worked as an economic development planning professional, and in marketing roles specialising in pricing modelling and promotional evaluation for global companies (including P&G).

Gordon benefits (not suffers) from dyslexia, and is a proponent of the emerging New Economics School. Gordon contributes articles to Business for Scotland, The National and Believe in Scotland.

10 Comments

  • Whilst the article presents a valid proposition so do some of those questioning it, there can be no certainty until we have the luxury of hindsight. What was apparent post the 2014 vote was that a great many lies were able to be presented as facts. Something which can only be got away with when an audience is uneducated, therefore it seems sensible to use the time before the quagmire of serious campaigning for votes gets underway, to prepare the ground (opening minds) by ensuring that the audience is as well informed as possible and gets accustomed to trusting information from recognisable sources. It needs more than blank YESs, which are as much of a turn of for the target audience as they are reassuring for the already committed. A hundred thousand people can march on a Saturday yet unless it is reported by Monday it didn’t happen. So why are all car windows being left to ‘Arnold Clark’? Why when we’re waiting in the (not so) supermarket queue, am I not seeing shopping bags telling me how great Scotland’s exports are? There are no shortage of messages which can be presented by any group, using very simple technology, to get people thinking. Even getting people to doubt a statement will do it’s job when they do their research to prove it wrong, only to find that it is correct. Making the movement visible daily on things such as lapel badges, car stickers, and shopping bags, can only add to the impression that independence is as inevitable as it needs to be.

  • How is yet another mandate going to be more ‘undeniable’ that the last several the Scottish gov’t had? You say they cannot keep saying no forever but give absolutely no justification for that opinion. They don’t need Scottish votes, so what exactly will make them care about yet another mandate?

    Yes, opinion in England has moved towards independence, but it has no organisation, no leadership, and no influence.

  • Where did you get that that is the strategy from? Because it is not what Sturgeon has been saying. Also why 60%? What is suddenly magical about that? Does that mean we cannae go if it’s just 58%?

    And of course with the Salmond inquiry off and running events dear boy events. Also if the sky doesn’t fall in in January and things go along kind of okay then what?

    This passive waiting for the polls to move is what bugs me. In 2012 support for Yes was between 30 & 35%. By campaigning we moved it to 52% with 2 weeks to go triggering the Infamous Vow. So why can’t we have an officially sanctioned campaign to move the polls all the faster?

    It will need to be officially sanctioned & announced or folk won’t open their doors, minds & hearts to us. ‘I’m busy’ SLAM! will be response from too many without it.

  • A big thanks for this Gordon. Clarifies the Plan A approach very well which has been missing from the discussions and heated debate on social media. And I think the phrase “democratic gold standard” is a good one, it helps to frame the Plan A argument in a nutshell, while at the same time effectively saying that Plan A needn’t be a block on another approach but this is the best way for the current time. You could also argue that enlightened people have been fighting for independence for 300 years, so another 6 or 10 years is not a concern. I just think the Plan B people are worried that the current Indy majority is fragile and we should be seizing the moment.

  • “Put a commitment to holding a referendum with a Section 30 in the manifesto for Holyrood, get a single party majority and demand a Section 30.” – How do we guarantee this majority under D’Hondt?

  • “many committed Unionists would admit openly that Scotland has a democratic right to hold a referendum” – You must be familiar with a different kind of unionist.

  • ” It is only when the FM can say she wanted the democratic route but has been forced by Westminster’s undemocratic, dictatorial approach and by overwhelming public opinion to offer a Plan B that it becomes acceptable, both to undecided and persuadable voters and also, vitally, to the international community. ”

    So, Johnson can keep saying NO forever – and after *another* mandate [we have had a few] – we may well have to offer a Plan B.

    But not now.
    We’ll sort it.
    Trust us.
    Like the referendum we WERE going to have this year.
    Which wasn’t going to happen, but we were told “Trust us”.

    We hear the words.
    We don’t see the action.

    We kinda have less faith in Boris than you evidently seem to do.

  • Not often I disagree with you…but boy when I do it seems I do.

    Firstly you state ‘get a single party majority’…show us all the elaborate math that takes, then tie that math to the polls…under D’hondt there’s no easy ‘single party majority’ and yet you just throw it in there like the political equivalent of science’s primordial soup.

    Then there’s this doozy ‘undeniable mandate’…go on and explain what’s deniable about the existing mandates, are you seriously suggesting that to have a mandate we need a majority that the voting system is designed to deny?

    ‘we dare Westminster to say NO to a referendum – if they do, the Union will disintegrate’…what are you talking about, describe to me the process of this disintegration, England voted this Tory government in for 5 years, England voted for Brexit, and every poll I see STILL puts the Tory’s way ahead of Labour so go on, explain the process of disintegration?

    ‘Plan A is the democratic gold standard; when all democratic, legal and proper routes have been exhausted, only then do other ways to deliver independence become acceptable.’

    Bit lost here Gordon, help me out. So there’s Plan A and Plan B, but Plan A is the gold standard and presumably Plan B the ‘only then’ type other ways.
    So if Plan A is in with the ‘all democratic, legal and proper routes’…why isn’t there a Plan B that’s in that group. Tell you what, just list for us all of those democratic, legal and ‘proper’ routes and let us decide if Plan A really is the ‘gold standard’, get us on board with Nicola and you so to speak.

    You then go on to pretty much say that Plan B is a ‘Catalonia type’ affair…hold on though, you’ve not outlined all of the ‘democratic, legal and ‘proper’ routes…I do like the idea of a ‘proper’ route, it’s a bit like ‘Nicola knows, but she can’t say because then the yoons would know’. So Plan B, who decided what it was, and can you be entirely clear about what it is. It’s just that when certain people wanted a Plan B, Nicola, Peter and the NEC decided that wasn’t happening, twice if my memory serves, so who’s Plan B have you decided to rubbish?

    I gave up when you started talking with certainty about English independence…something not one English nationalist party advocates or campaigns for.

    I’m sooooo disappointed Gordon because what you appear to have written is a jolly rallying call, lets all vote SNP 1 and 2, even though that wastes around a million votes, fails mathematically and historically to make sense, but hey, it’s what Nicola wants so I’ll tell you it can work as long as you don’t ask me to prove it.
    Followed by, lets all have faith that Nicola and Peter know best, lets all believe that the more likely a YES vote gets the less tenable Boris’s position becomes, because despite a great parliamentary majority, support across England and no EU to hold him to account, Nicola believes it…even if she can’t show or explain exactly what ‘lever’ makes his position of just saying NO untenable.

    Do me a favour while you have your head so firmly in the sand, take a head count, because I believe that like the SNP membership, the numbers down under there are going down, at a rate of knots.

  • The only difficulty with your proposition Gordon isn’t that Westminster won’t offer a Section 30 but they’ll do it with so many conditions that it will be a poisoned chalice that the SNP won’t be able to accept. We then revert to the well worn path of perfidious Albion on a win win course to a consolidated state of the United Kingdom

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