Fiona Hyslop hinted at it last night, but Nicola Sturgeon said it outright in a speech today. Legislation to bring forward a second independence referendum is being prepared. Much of the conversation circles around Article 50, the mechanism by which a state will leave the EU. There is a two-year process, and the First Minister announced her intention to guarantee that an independence referendum could be held within that time frame, which would keep Scotland in the EU as the rest of the UK leaves. Quoting from her press conference this morning:
The manifesto that the SNP was elected on last month said this:
The Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.
Scotland does now face that prospect, it is a significant and material change in circumstances, and it is therefor a statement of the obvious that the option of a second referendum must be on the table. And it is on the table.
Scottish communities voted unanimously last night to remain. Only 35% of Scots voted against the EU, and in conversations I’ve had with pollsters and politicians, a lot of that vote was tactical. Specifically, poor Scots were voting for chaos because they knew it would send the pound tumbling. It’s accelerationist thinking. Other tactical reasons are that they wanted the leave vote to be high enough in Scotland that it couldn’t overturn England’s leave vote, meaning that the exact conditions mentioned in the SNP manifesto would be triggered, requiring a second independence referendum.
Scotland faces the prospect of being taken out of the EU against our will. I regard that as democratically unacceptable. We face that prospect less than two years after being told that it was our own referendum on independence that would end our membership of the European Union, and that only a rejection of independence could protect it.
Indeed, for many people, the supposed guarantee of remaining in the EU was a driver in their decision to vote to stay within the UK. So there is no doubt that yesterday's result represents a significant and a material change of the circumstances in which Scotland in which Scotland voted against independence in 2014.
She spoke about markets, and said her government was going to talk to stakeholders, including business leaders, saying that of this moment, Scotland is still in the EU and business should continue as usual. This is a typical Nicola Sturgeon master stroke. It's going to be much easier for businesses that want access to the EU market to relocate to Scotland before the upcoming Scexit vote than it is going to be for them to get BACK into the EU after the UK leaves. She's trying to pull as many businesses out of England and Wales into Scotland as she can, especially since that could create more jobs in a time of economic turmoil. This is the kind of hardball politics that Sturgeon has been playing, and it’s one of the reason’s she’s extremely well respected.
But there’s another question. What if the UK Parliament at Westminster refuses to accept a second indyref?
"I intend to take all possible steps, and explore all options, to give effect to how people in Scotland voted. In other words, to secure our continuing place in the EU, and the single market in particular. To that end I have made it clear to the Prime Minister this morning that the Scottish Government must be fully and directly involved in any and all decisions about the next steps that the UK government intends to take. We will also be seeking direct discussions with EU institutions and its member states including the earliest possible meeting with the president of the European Commission. I will also be communicating this weekend to each EU member state to make clear that Scotland has voted to stay in the EU, and I intend to discuss all options for doing so."
In the past, SNP policy has included a unilateral declaration of independence. That is the unspoken nuclear option. There is likely to be a discussion between the Scottish government and other EU governments about whether in those circumstances, EU members would support a unilateral declaration of independence in Scotland. The SNP will never mention that outright, though former leader Alex Salmond has hinted at it in the past, saying that there are other options should the democratic process be denied to the Scottish people. Nicola is far more subtle, and has simply said that after the Edinburgh Agreement, Scotland being denied the right to hold a second referendum is “inconceivable.”
Scottish Unionists are crossing their fingers, hoping that the SNP doesn’t have the votes to bring a referendum forward. I’ve already read three or for articles with the following phrase:
But the SNP has a minority government...
Yes. They will rely on other pro-independence parties to support a referendum. When the Scottish people voted for the SNP and Greens, they voted for majority representation by parties promising a second independence referendum in these circumstances. Again, If they are denied what they voted for, a Declaration of Independence would be considered.
I’ve maintained regular contact with several green party members, including more than a few youth wing greens, and here’s what must be understood:
There is no question that the green party will support a second indyref. They just have to ask their members if it’s okay first, because that’s how they do things, even if they already know the answer. I’ve heard repeatedly that a large portion of the Green Party membership are no voters. That was true before the referendum. The Scottish Green Party has tripled in size since 2014, almost all of the new voters are college age and pro-independence.
When I reported from the Independence Referendum for Netroots Radio in 2014, I stayed in the home of a green party member in Edinburgh. The green party already had more support for independence than they had for the union in 2014, but the youth of the party are for independence overwhelmingly.
They mirror Sanders supporters in a lot of ways, and to be clear I mean that as a compliment. They are uncompromising, highly organized, vociferous in disagreement, and tech savvy. If the green party fails to live up to their expectations, they will find someone else to support, and RISE is waiting in the wings to be the next party of the uncompromising left.
Patrick Harvie, leader of the Scottish Greens, may have made some strategic decisions I disagree with, but the man does understand that if he doesn’t back independence as his supporters demand, his party will collapse back into fringe obscurity again.
So let me say this loud, clear, and in bold: If the SNP brings forward indyref legislation, they will have all the support they need to pass it through the Scottish Parliament.
Furthermore, they’ll have the popular support to carry it through. Everything has changed in the past two years. Prominent unionists have been backing Scottish independence this morning.
As pointed out by Independence blogger Rev Campbell at Wings Over Scotland, Alex Massie, a radical unionist who hasn’t just opposed independence, but warned of “Rivers of Blood” flowing over the West Lothian question, said that he would support Scottish independence in the circumstances we have today.
JK Rowling, the Harry Potter author who helped fund the Better Together campaign in 2014, has stopped just short of announcing her support for Scottish Independence, in a series of tweets.
Seriously, check out her timeline for June 24. A lot of it is lukewarm backing for the SNP’s position on independence. She retweeted this:
This is, again, one of the primary economic backers of Better Together. She gave them a million pounds. (Which I think, thanks to an emergency measure by the Bank of England, have now been renamed to grammes.)
It would not be surprising to see a raft of polling in the coming days with support for Scottish Independence well into the majority. You’re already seeing EU chiefs demand that the Brexit process begin immediately so that they can stave off two years of uncertainty they can’t afford.
And when it comes to political capacity, the SNP is the largest party in Scotland, several orders of magnitude bigger than anyone else in terms of seats and membership. During the last independence referendum, the Labour Party’s infrastructure was what supported Better together.
That infrastructure was wiped out by the SNP asteroid strike in 2015, which saw unionist parties reduced to three Westminster seats in Scotland. There is no ready-made infrastructure to support a unionist campaign during a second independence referendum. Scottish unionism just lost some of it’s strongest backers, it’s largest single donor, and the infrastructure it used to win.
There’s one final quote from Nicola that I think is important. I’ve posted her full press conference below.
"Scotland, like London and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union. We voted to protect our place in the world's biggest single market, and the jobs and investment that depend on it. We voted to safeguard our freedom to travel, live, work, and study in other European countries. And we voted to renew our reputation as an outward looking, open, and inclusive country. It is significant, in my view, that we did so after a campaign that was positive about the EU, and about the benefits of migration.
I want to take the opportunity to speak directly to citizens of other European countries living here in Scotland: You remain welcome here, Scotland is your home, and your contribution is valued.
Scotland is a different country from the rest of the UK. They had a different conversation during the EURef, and they very clearly have different values and ideals. Every step since the last independence referendum has seen the cracks in the UK grow wider and wider. Independence is inevitable. Considering the chaos likely to result from Brexit, let’s hope their departure from the British Union is a swift one.
Nicola Sturgeon’s full press conference:
Minor Edit: This was my original title image, but it didn’t quite work as a thumbnail, so I swapped it out. I still think it’s hilarious, so I’m adding it here for anyone who wants it: