Taking the High Road to Independence
Sunday National, 16 August 2026
Gerry Hassan
Talk of Scottish independence is in the air; in these columns, on social media and among independence supporters. But here is a reality check – the vast majority of Scotland do not persistently talk about independence as they have more immediate things on their minds.
Independence has become divorced from reality: namely the reality of most Scots. Some may think that harsh, but it is true and needs acknowledging for anything to change. There has been a vacuum at the heart of independence since 2014 with no real growth, strategy or ideas enacted. Some of this is the deliberate actions of the SNP leadership hoarding power, invoking their “Duke of York” strategy under Nicola Sturgeon, and not undertaking any substantive work on independence.
Riding the Scottish Wave of Change
Let’s go back a bit. The 2014 indyref was a wave of energy, engagement and excitement which the SNP invoked and rode. But it was not their wave. Rather it was the creation of a society excited about engaging with the fundamentals of what it could be in the future. All against the backdrop of a country where the old hierarchies and institutions were in retreat, with new spaces being opened for fresh ideas and imagination.
Not only did the SNP not understand the wave, but it became clear that they wanted to replace the old elites and old top-down power with their own version of elites, establishments and top-down authority. And it is not very surprising that this is the low road of control that has been travelled since 2014 without full candour or any evidence of understanding of the wider historical context.
If one was being charitable this is not all the fault of the SNP. They and the rest of society are the product of huge economic, social and cultural forces remaking Scotland and how power, authority and permission are understood. This is about how we relate to each other, govern ourselves and manage our affairs – principles way beyond our constitutional status.
Politics detests vacuums. Into independence’s vacuum has come the fringe groups Liberation and Salvo, now given backing from ex-diplomat Craig Murray proposing a timescale, declaration of independence, post-event confirmatory referendum: all the while aspiring to UN recognition and intervention.
It all sounds plausible and attractive. There are positives in that this invites a wider conversation about the missing road not taken since 2014, the wave not built upon, the long-term changes in Scotland not championed and the shifting nature of power and authority not encouraged by a party of government trying to centralise as much as possible.
The myth that is Scotland is a Colony
Yet the basis of the Liberation/Salvo approach is questionable and in places unsupported and unsustainable. A central refrain is “Scotland is a colony”, the logic being that because Scotland is denied an indyref by Westminster we are trapped in a union against our will. This is palpably not the case.
For starters has anyone tried this line down their local pub, that “Scotland is a colony”. Such a notion insults real colonies which have experienced brutal colonialism oppressing them. Please no one try to compare Thatcher, the poll tax or the McCrone report to those who have been butchered by the British, French or German empires. Scotland for starters has direct representation of its people in the Westminster Parliament; and not in any rigged way such as Ireland did under colonial rule. Add to this, as the Scottish self-government debate has come alive over the past 50 years, we have had not one, but three Scottish-only votes on self-government in 1979, 1997, 2014.
The next mirage is the belief in some kind of UN intervention to adjudicate on Scotland’s status, to then hold a referendum which somehow the British state will not be able to influence, and aid independence through the “decolonisation process.” Such a plan has clearly been devised without any realistic concept of the UN’s role, power and ability, or desire, to intervene in internal affairs of modern states.
The UN called upon Morocco over three decades ago to facilitate an independence referendum for the people of Western Sahara based on Resolution 690 agreed in 1991 which Morocco signed up to. Western Sahara is a former Spanish territory which Morocco and Mauritania took over when Spain withdrew in 1975-76. Today Morocco lays claim to all the territory, and it is called “Africa’s last colony”. But does the UN have the power or interest to impose a Western Saraha referendum on the unwilling Moroccans? Of course not, and Morocco does not even suffer any kind of international outcry for its stance.
Running through the Liberation/Salvo prospectus is a deliberate misreading of the nature of the UK. The UK comprises several unions, the most critical being the 1707 union between Scotland and England with Wales not legally existing at this point having been conquered and subsumed into ‘England.
The experience of Wales or Ireland never happened to Scotland. We were not conquered and annexed into the union. The 1707 acts of union preserve Scotland as a nation, a legal entity and the autonomy of its civil society and public institutions. As Scotland’s most influential intellectual Tom Nairn said of the union: “Scotland had its formal head taken off but the body of civil society remained running domestic affairs beyond Westminster’s rule.”
The legal authority Professor Robert Black KC made two illuminating interventions on the Union last year in which he argued, correctly, that the English parliamentary tradition subsumed Scottish constitutional practice. That assessment is well founded. However, he then overstated his case by arguing that “Scotland was annexed into a continuing English state” and that the Union of 1707 amounted to an “annexation” and a “takeover of Scotland by England.” This is not an interpretation accepted by the mainstream of Scottish historical scholarship. Historians such as Tom Devine and T. C. Smout, along with most leading authorities on the Treaty and Acts of Union, do not characterise 1707 as an annexation of Scotland by England.
Scotland’s Future and Democracy
This is the backstory of recent suggestions. More is at play, specifically the nature of democracy and Scotland today. Scotland cannot, as Murray proposes, declare independence over the heads of the people which is at the core of this proposal. That somehow being a nation allows this and hence a specific interpretation of the nation’s constitutional status. If this were enacted which it won’t be it would amount to a kind of political coup – a seizure and declaration of political authority.
Scotland can only become independent due to the democratic wishes and say of its people. Two million Scots voted No in 2014. Public opinion has not been static since and is constantly in flux, but the weight of those two million votes cannot be superseded by sleight of hand. Relevant to this is that post-2014 independence has never ever built up a sustained and substantial majority.
Rather than engage in fantasy thinking Scots need to identify and embark on the high road not taken post-2014. This would acknowledge the external constraints on any independence process, as well as internal ones – and that addressing the latter impacts on the former. Thus, the line put by some independence supporters that “London is keeping us in a union against our will” entrenches a sense of powerlessness. It ignores the power and resources we have as Scots to tear down our internal constraints and build a battering ram for change, and in so doing recognise that independence is not just about independence – the road not travelled since 2014.
Making Independence Real
Here are some observations for addressing the road not travelled post-2014. First, independence can never just be an abstraction or a principle. That is the route of a minority Scotland appeal. This means that independence must have a future offer – and what the Scottish Government does in the here and now matters. The SNP and independence are not synonymous but after 20 years in office the SNP has a patchy record, policy failures, and visible fatigue – all of which comes at a human and political cost.
Second, independence needs to stop talking to itself. Very few people in full possession of the facts think that “Scotland is a colony” or that the UN is coming to the rescue. Similarly, pretending that most things have worked well post-2014 is misguided. No one should be Panglossian about the SNP post-2014 or the Greens or any aspect of our politics. Time, effort and energy has been wasted and dissipated. Most people in Scotland do not think of their country in “Yes” and “No” terms, or as binary tribes, and they are right. We are not reducible to simple political divisions – there are many shades between these two poles.
Third, any meaningful idea of independence is not just about independence. This is where the SNP’s version has consistently fallen flat talking about such change as “the full powers of a normal Parliament” or as one SNP minister told me “extending the Scotland Act until it covers all domestic life.” The aim of such talk is to make independence unthreatening but instead limits its potential. What is independence if it is not about wider social change and challenging the status quo?
Fourth, making independence about a new social compact, contract and partnership: a New Deal for Scotland requires creating vessels and platforms to aid this. I have long suggested creating a Campaign for Self-Determination modelled on the post-1979 Campaign for a Scottish Parliament which created a cross-party Claim of Right advancing the principle of popular sovereignty which led to detailed plans for the Parliament which came about. A Campaign for Self-Determination would not be about arid, abstract ideas of independence, but about how power and authority are held in society and used in our name. It would have relevance across society and public bodies and could have a new Claim of Right setting out its vision building on the 1988 Claim.
Fifth, the British state is a complex entity with many problems but we need to understand it. And not to caricature it as if it is not in numerous ways subject to pressure and change. We know that the British state is adaptable. Three Scottish-only referendums. Welsh votes. And the Good Friday Agreement (GFA). The latter provides a framework for any future Irish reunification vote – which could provide a model for a pan-British level agreement to progress Scottish self-government.
Sixth, independence needs an awareness that all politics needs a sense of timescales and a temporal awareness of the connectedness of past, present and future. This means post-2014 that there is no point in advocating continually for independence without any in-depth plan or public support. Doing so comes from a place of weakness and wastes time. Similarly, the unrealistic belief that there is an irrevocable “mandate” in the 2026 Scottish elections based on 41% FPTP and 42% regional vote for pro-independence parties convinces very few. This is Swinney and company going through the motions and recognised as such by Starmer and now Burnham.
Finally, the wider world we live in has changed since 2014 and was already changing by our historic vote. The “Yes” campaign’s hopes and passions were driven then by a desire and belief that Scotland could be a progressive, democratic and European nation: hardly the most revolutionary qualities but ones which the British state has proven itself impossible in championing.
Yet, even in 2014 and more so now, those very values – progressive, democratic and pro-European – are in retreat and crisis across Europe and internationally. The forces of reaction and populism are gathering strength and what passes for the left and centre-left has mostly retreated and attempted to appease such forces.
Closer to home Scotland is not the beacon that it could be on such values. Our centre-left politics are filled with caution and conservativism; we are not that democratic with Holyrood centralising as much as Westminster; and being pro-European raises major questions about the nature of the EU and Scotland’s possible place in it.
What can we take from the above? Certainly, there is a pressing need to understand Scotland’s long revolution and growing self-government in the wider landscape of the political storms and tsunamis blowing across the world. Critically there is the backlash against Raymond Williams’ “long revolution” of egalitarianism and democratisation which defined the post-war West until the 1970s which historian Ewan Gibbs has called “the long counter-revolution” prioritising privilege and inequality.
With all this said, Scots do have collective power. We are not victims. We are not powerless. As the old myth rightly goes no one colonised us. We are active agents of our own destiny. “We are the people” as Canon Kenyon Wright said when inviting Scottish MPs to sign the Claim of Right declaration in 1989. Not the SNP. Not the Greens. Not Labour. Not even the Scottish Parliament.
Every political act of every single person should contribute to smashing the glass ceiling and internal constraints in our society which hold people back. Do that and we change Scotland, redefine who we are and change any external constraints. All of which would bring a real self-governing Scotland closer into being – one which changed lives, widened opportunities and had a different idea of power and authority to the present.
