Is a new route-map to independence starting to take shape?

The Glasgow SNP councillor Mhairi Hunter today rebuked those who were pushing for alternatives to an independence referendum by pointing out that a referendum is firm SNP policy, and that she personally does not believe that there is any route to independence without a referendum.  That argument troubles me a bit, because the vast majority of people who are talking about alternatives are not doing it because they oppose a referendum - quite the reverse, in fact.  A referendum is their preferred option, but they feel it has now been closed off.  If the referendum policy must be regarded as gospel, then by all means let's hold a referendum - but even the dogs on the street know that will entail going ahead without a Section 30 order, which both the Tories and Labour appear to be committed to refusing for the foreseeable future.  We're told that Nicola Sturgeon would never go ahead without a Section 30, which is exactly why there needs to be an alternative to a referendum.  It would be intellectually dishonest to maintain that you're in favour of a referendum if you're implacably opposed to actually taking the steps necessary to bring a referendum about in the real world.  That would be a strategy for not even really seeking to obtain independence, while having a good excuse with which mollify your supporters.

Fortunately, however, it appears that other senior SNP people disagree with Mhairi and are giving serious thought to possible methods by which an outright mandate for independence can be secured by an election, rather than by referendum.  An article in the Sunday Times suggested that the next Westminster election could be used to reinforce the current mandate for an independence referendum, and if that was ignored a subsequent Westminster election could then be used to obtain an outright mandate for independence itself.  It was implied that the second mandate would require some kind of super-majority in terms of seats won, but not necessarily an absolute majority of votes cast.

I must say that sounds unnecessarily convoluted to me.  We already have the mandate for a referendum, that mandate has already been ignored, so the obvious next step is to seek an outright mandate for independence at the next appropriate election - which I think logically should mean the next Holyrood election.  Even if we did end up seeking yet another mandate to hold a referendum, it seems a bit odd to say that we need a majority at Westminster for that, given that the 2014 indyref was held when the SNP had only 6 out of 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons.  The much more natural arena for settling these questions is the Scottish Parliament.

On the plus side, though, at least there's a chance that the next Westminster election could only be a few months away - that's largely outwith our control, but it could well happen.  If that's the way it pans out, at least we wouldn't be mucking about indefinitely.  And even if I'm slightly dubious about the exact details of this strategy, I'm very glad that consideration is being given to credible options for breaking the logjam.

There was a unionist chap on Twitter yesterday who described any suggestion of abandoning the referendum idea in favour of an election as "fundamentalist".  If that's true, the source of the fundamentalism is a newly-radicalised British nationalist establishment that has made the holding of a referendum either difficult or impossible, and has left us with no option but to find an alternative.  Taking the best available option within the constraints that others have placed on you is a form of pragmatism, not extremism.  (The alternative course of action, which I fear Mhairi Hunter is agitating for, would be impotent utopianism.)  One thing I've started to do is delete comments on this blog which gloat that "there isn't going to be a referendum", not on the basis that the Scottish people don't want one, but simply on the basis that Westminster will block it regardless of circumstances.  If the only argument you've got is "you're living in a dictatorship, suck it up", you haven't really got an argument at all.

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Any indyref strategy that could leave us powerless to act until 2026 is a strategy that should be rejected

You may have seen a YouTube video doing the rounds of Nicola Sturgeon being unusually candid on Saturday about her strategy for seeking a mandate for independence if the UK government refuses a Section 30 order.  Here's a transcript...

"And the same would be true if we ended up trying to have a referendum that the other side would say was illegal.  The beauty of 2014 was that it was an agreed process.  So all this is taking me to the point of: I don't have an easy answer to this, because we may get into a situation where the UK government says 'No, we're not going to agree to a Section 30 order' and you know, I think if that happens we need to look above that, we need to make a case of how unreasonable that is, and ultimately if the only way through that is to take that to an election, and ask the people of Scotland to use an election to say no, we will absolutely have the right to do this, maybe that's what that would take."

Let's start with the good news.  Although some people are interpreting this as the first concrete evidence that Ms Sturgeon might be minded to adopt the Pete Wishart "Hold! Hold! Hold! Hold! Hold! Hoooold!  Hoooooooold! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!" strategy and let the current mandate for a pre-2021 independence referendum expire, on my reading that very clearly isn't what she is saying at all.  It sounds much more like she is at least planning to attempt to use the mandate, and will at some point over the coming weeks or months renew her demand for a Section 30 order.  If so, fantastic, that's just what most of us are crying out for.

The bad news is that her thinking on a consultative referendum doesn't appear to have moved on since early 2017 (a time when everyone still naively thought London would accept Scotland's right to democratic self-determination).  In other words, Ms Sturgeon still doesn't believe a referendum is worth holding unless it has London's consent, and therefore if a Section 30 order isn't granted, we won't go ahead in the immediate future.  That needlessly gives London a veto of sorts, at least in the short term, and that doesn't seem satisfactory at all.  I'm particularly puzzled by her use of the word "illegal", because any consultative referendum held without a Section 30 would almost certainly only go ahead if the Supreme Court upheld the legislation, which would remove any doubt about the legality of the process.  The Tories and Labour would just look silly if they tried to claim something the Supreme Court had endorsed was "illegal".

However, a needless aversion to a consultative vote isn't the end of the world as long as there is a credible alternative plan, and that's what makes the ambiguity in Ms Sturgeon's closing words so tantalising.  Most people are interpreting it as meaning she would use the 2021 election to seek yet another mandate for a referendum, even though we already have a perfectly good one.  (As our dear old American gun nut friend Kevin Baker used to say: "Do it again, only HARDER!!!!")  I agree that's probably what she meant, but it's not at all clear.  I would suggest that it's entirely possible to interpret "use an election to say no, we will absolutely have the right to do this" as meaning that the election will be used to seek an outright mandate for independence itself if a Section 30 order is denied.  That would be a strategy most of us could happily unite behind.

But if the 'seek yet another mandate for a referendum' interpretation is the correct one, I think we're going to have to speak out against it, because the problems with that strategy are pretty obvious.  If we win a pro-independence majority at the 2021 election (not a given, of course), and Westminster still says "no" to a referendum, what do we do then?  We already know that Ms Sturgeon is unlikely to go ahead with a consultative referendum, so even if she belatedly accepts at that point that an election must then be used to seek an outright mandate for independence, there would be the rather enormous problem that another Holyrood election wouldn't be due until 2026.  Any strategy that could leave us powerless for another eight years does not strike me as being a promising one.

Of course snap Westminster elections can sometimes appear out of the blue, and might offer an opportunity to seek a mandate (of whatever sort) more speedily than would otherwise be the case.  But relying on blind chance doesn't seem like a great idea either.

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Britain is now a prison - the SNP must set out its escape plan

Britain is no longer the country that most of us grew up in, and the transformation has been incredibly recent and sudden.  Every Prime Minister between Harold Wilson and David Cameron accepted that Scotland was only part of the UK on a voluntary basis and could leave any time it wished.  Even in the early days of Theresa May's premiership, Ruth Davidson was still explaining to journalists that it would be 'constitutionally improper' for London to block an independence referendum requested by a majority of the elected Scottish Parliament.  That immaculate principle of self-determination was not compromised until May's "now is not the time" schtick, which was intended to imply a deferral rather than an outright rejection of Scotland's right to choose.  But it's now clear that was merely a staging post on a quick transition towards the new colonial settlement, backed by both Tory and Labour, in which Scotland is told it will be remaining in the UK regardless of its own wishes.  The new Britain is the very Soviet-style prison that Jeremy Hunt, with a record-breaking absence of self-awareness, claimed the EU to be only the other day.  That is a truly staggering development, and the only thing even more staggering is the fact that our useless mainstream media don't seem to feel the attempted murder of Scotland's democracy is worthy of any note.

It may seem naive in retrospect, but the SNP's strategy in firing the starting gun for a referendum in early 2017 hinged entirely on the belief that Theresa May would not say "no".  It was a genuine surprise to the SNP leadership when she did, but even after that point the strategy continued to assume that her "no" had to really mean "maybe, when the pressure builds".  In the light of recent events, such wishful thinking must be dispensed with permanently.  We now know for virtually certain that a method for circumventing a London "no" will be required, and luckily two such methods exist - a consultative referendum held without a Section 30 order (which would probably need to be okayed by the Supreme Court), or a Holyrood election that doubles as an independence referendum. We need to hear from the SNP right now, or very soon, about how one or both of those methods will be used.  That does not in any way prejudge the issue of referendum timing, because regardless of whether the referendum is called next year, or in 2025, or at any point in between, it is clear that London will not give its blessing.  If the SNP is serious about Scotland leaving the prison of the UK at any point in the future, it's absolutely crucial that it now demonstrates that seriousness to the electorate by revealing its escape plan.  Not actually a difficult or challenging thing to do, but without it the credibility of the whole independence cause may start to wither, because the media will be all too eager to triumphantly have people believe that independence is automatically dead just because London says it is.

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What else has changed about Britain very recently?  Try the abrupt end of the devolution settlement as we know it.  The whole point of devolution was to end the situation that prevailed in the 1980s and 1990s when the Scottish Tories were manning the Scottish Office and arrogantly calling the shots in this country on the basis of 28% or 24% or 26% of the vote.  We appear to be right back to where we started.  Ruth Davidson, who has never led her party to anything better than second place and 29% of the vote in any election, seemingly has the right to tell the landslide winner of every recent election in Scotland to "sling her hook" when she tries to implement her manifesto.  As the defeated leader of the opposition, Davidson can apparently make "announcements" about which year in the distant future the elected First Minister of this country might possibly be "allowed" to implement the will of the people.  Oddly, our mainstream media believe this state of affairs is somehow inspiring, rather than the democratic outrage it so obviously is.

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Corbyn's day of infamy as Labour become the party of colonialism

If it was the case that Labour were simply saying that winning a majority in Scotland at the next general election would constitute a mandate to block an independence referendum, that might just about be a defensible position.  (It would still be wrong, incidentally, because a Holyrood election is the appropriate arena to seek constitutional mandates.  But at least it would be an acknowledgement that a Scottish mandate is required.)  What they instead appear to be saying is that they will seek a Britain-wide "mandate" to block an indyref, and even if Scotland comprehensively rejects Labour for a third consecutive general election, the wishes of voters south of the border will be imposed in Scotland, and the wishes of voters who actually live in Scotland will be contemptuously disregarded.

That isn't democracy.  That's a hostage situation.  Labour have today embraced the logic of colonialism - indeed, it's precisely the same logic that has fuelled the persecution of the Catalan independence movement.  Incredibly, Labour have looked at what the Spanish government did and thought "wow, that's a template we must copy".  We used to think the idea of a British government seeking the imprisonment of SNP ministers was totally unthinkable...but then the idea that a major UK party would oppose Scotland's right to self-determination was unthinkable until very recently.  Who knows what the future might hold.

There is a very clear lesson here for the SNP.  Attaining a referendum via a Section 30 order is now a non-starter regardless of whether there is a Tory or Labour government.  So from this moment on we shouldn't hear any more about how the SNP leadership are temperamentally opposed to a referendum held without Westminster's consent.  Of course a Section 30 would have been preferable, but you can only choose an option that is actually open to you.  If you will the ends, you have to will the means.  That leads us inescapably to one of two possibilities - either a consultative referendum held without a Section 30 order (which would probably have to be defended at the Supreme Court), or the seeking of an outright mandate for independence at the next Holyrood election.

As for Corbyn's motivation for abandoning his long-standing and principled opposition to colonialism, I can only assume that it must be a cynical electoral calculation aimed at winning back voters who were won over by the moronic simplicity of the Tories' "No to Indyref 2" message in June 2017.  If so, it's an enormous gamble, because there were Yes voters who backed Corbyn last year, but for whom voting for a party explicitly seeking a mandate to block an indyref will be a step too far.  The penny seems to have finally dropped today for Cat Boyd, for example.

Yes vote stands at 46% in Scot Goes Pop Poll of Polls

It's been ages since I last calculated a polling average on independence, so I thought it might be time to give it a spin.  For those who don't remember, the Scot Goes Pop Poll of Polls takes into account only the most recent poll from each firm that has asked the independence question at some point in the last six months.  Back during the indyref, I had an exchange with a pollster (I think it was someone from Ipsos-Mori) who was insistent that my method didn't make sense, and that a Poll of Polls should take into account all of the most recent handful of polls regardless of which firms had conducted them.  I pointed out to him that the 'house effects' in indyref polls were so extreme that his preferred method would generate crazily misleading trends - if you went from one average that was mostly based on polls from No-friendly firms (such as YouGov) to another average that was mostly based on polls from Yes-friendly firms (such as Panelbase), you'd get the firm impression there had been a sharp swing to Yes even if no such thing had actually happened.

The gap between pollsters is no longer as extreme these days, but there are still differences.  Panelbase has moved to the other end of the spectrum and is now a No-friendly pollster, usually reporting a Yes vote that is a little lower than one or two other firms such as Survation.  Needless to say YouGov remain a firmly No-friendly outfit, and as you know I've always been a bit cynical about them.  It's hard to escape the conclusion sometimes that they start from the assumption that the Yes vote should be on the low side and work backwards to find a methodology that will produce that outcome.  During the indyref, when they were still under the control of Labour supporter Peter Kellner, they used the notorious "Kellner Correction" to split SNP voters into two distinct categories and weight them separately, which magically produced figures that were much more No-friendly than other online firms - until the closing weeks of the campaign, when the small SNP group that they were artificially upweighting showed an enormous swing to Yes.  That was why Damian Lyons-Lowe of Survation argued on the evening of September 18th that the campaign had not had much impact on voting intentions, while Peter Kellner standing right next to him was equally insistent that the swing during the campaign had been dramatic.  It's impossible to know who was right, although I do suspect that if YouGov had been picking up a pro-Yes swing several months before polling day rather than a couple of weeks before, they might have changed their methodology again to make that swing look less significant.  Not because they were consciously trying to 'rig' anything, but because Kellner was bringing unionist preconceptions to the table and was much more likely to search for reasons why Yes was being overestimated, rather than the reverse.

Anyway, for today's update of the Poll of Polls, four polls are taken into account: very recent polls from Panelbase and Survation, a poll from YouGov that was conducted in early June, and a poll from Ipsos-Mori that was conducted in early March.  Obviously March is quite a while ago now, but that probably doesn't make too much difference - polling numbers on independence have been relatively stable of late.

SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 46.0%
No 54.0%

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If you haven't seen it yet, here is the second edition of Phantom Power's groundbreaking Nation documentary series starring Lesley Riddoch.  This time the focus is on Iceland.  Incidentally, did you know that more people speak Welsh than Icelandic?  And yet try telling the people of Iceland that their national language is "useless" and that they should just get on with speaking English like normal people do...

If an outright mandate for independence is sought at a parliamentary election, it should be done at Holyrood 2021, not Westminster 2022

You may have seen that Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp's column in The National today sets out what he believes is the most likely timetable for seeking a mandate on independence.  As you know, I entirely agree with him that the mandate must and will be sought in the near future, and it's great to see that point being made unapologetically by such an influential figure.  However, I do disagree with him about a number of the specifics.

First of all, he thinks Nicola Sturgeon may not renew her request for a Section 30 order until April or May of next year - by which time, of course, Scotland will already have been dragged out of the EU.  (That will be the case unless the exit date is extended by mutual consent, which is theoretically allowed under Article 50 but seems unlikely at the moment.)  I believe it would be a great mistake to let Brexit become an established fact on the ground before any action at all is taken.  The referendum itself may or may not have to wait until after Brexit, but the public should certainly know long before 29th March that an alternative choice is coming.  In any case, Nicola Sturgeon has been consistently saying for the last year that she will make her judgement this autumn, and if she were to backtrack on that, it would play into the London media's preferred (bogus) narrative that a referendum is to all intents and purposes off the table for the foreseeable future.  I do expect the announcement could be delayed until the tail-end of autumn, though, and I would just note in passing that Scotland's national day happens to be 30th November - the final day of meteorological autumn.  (Mind you, that choice of date might be just a little too obvious!)

Secondly, Gordon argues that when the Section 30 request is made, there is only a 50% chance that Theresa May will refuse it.  I would say the chances are more like 99% or higher.  The Tories have put all their eggs in the "now is not the time" basket, and nothing will change on that front until one of two things happen: either a) they suffer the shock of losing a significant number of seats in a Holyrood or Westminster election, or b) Nicola Sturgeon sidesteps the Section 30 problem altogether by calling a vote against Westminster's wishes.  That does not mean, however, that a Section 30 request should not be made - quite the reverse.  But when the moment comes, it should be made abundantly clear to Theresa May that "now is not the time" is not an acceptable answer - we will require either a "yes" or a "no", and if no such answer is received by a specific date, a "no" will be assumed and we will move on to other options.

Thirdly, Gordon believes that if a Section 30 order is refused, the alternative option should not be a consultative referendum.  He thinks there would be a danger of a unionist boycott which would remove legitimacy from the vote.  As I've said before, I don't understand that argument, because a consultative referendum would be an each-way bet - the unionist parties might not boycott it, in which case it becomes binding to all intents and purposes, but if they do, a Yes vote becomes inevitable and the anti-independence mandate of September 2014 will no longer be uncontested.  Either way, it's a major step forward.

Nevertheless, there is of course the possibility that a consultative referendum may not be possible if the Supreme Court strikes the legislation down, in which case we would need the Plan C of using a scheduled election as a de facto referendum.  Which brings me to the fourth of Gordon's points that I disagree with.  He thinks that the Westminster election of 2022 should be used as the mandate vote, and that the 2021 Holyrood election should merely be used to establish a mandate for using the Westminster vote to seek a mandate.  There are all sorts of problems with that idea, not least the fact that we don't even know whether the next general election will take place before or after the Holyrood vote - it could be any time up to 2022, including even this autumn.  But the biggest issue is that a Westminster election will be a British contest in which media coverage will be dominated by British issues, and in which the independence issue will be treated as a colourful sideshow.  It's plainly far more appropriate (and more strategically promising for that matter) to seek a mandate in a Scotland-only election.  Given the first-past-the-post voting system, a Westminster election also carries the significant risk of a contradictory mandate - one where pro-independence parties win the majority of seats but anti-independence parties win a majority of the vote, as happened last year.  The proportional representation system used at Holyrood doesn't eliminate that risk altogether, but it does reduce the risk significantly.  There's no way, for example, that either pro-independence or anti-independence parties could win a majority of seats at Holyrood on less than 40% of the vote.

This barefaced hypocrisy from Ruth Davidson cannot be allowed to stand. Not this time.

I've always thought that equal marriage and abortion law in Northern Ireland are the ultimate tests of how committed you really are to devolution.  You may think you believe that any Westminster interference in devolved matters is abhorrent, but if you find yourself saying "well, obviously abortion in Northern Ireland is different", then no, actually, you don't.  In Northern Ireland, abortion law and the ban on same-sex marriage are devolved matters, just like any other devolved matter.  That doesn't mean you can't have a view on whether there should be a change in the law, but it does mean that the focus for any agitation should be the Northern Ireland Assembly, not Westminster.  Changing the minds of the DUP may seem a hopeless task, but they have a mandate just as the SNP do in Scotland, and the Tories do in England.  If you believe in devolution, winning the argument in the Assembly is the only game in town, and appealing to Westminster for an overrule isn't an option.

(The current suspension of the Assembly doesn't change that calculation for the time being, because as of yet direct rule hasn't been reimposed and Northern Ireland is being run by its own civil service in the theoretical expectation that the Assembly will soon be sitting again.)

That being the case, it would - in normal circumstances - be impossible to fault Ruth Davidson's logic in these comments to the FT...

"If I was a politician in NI I would absolutely 100 % vote to change the law. But as someone who operates in a devolved administration I know how angry I would be if the House of Commons legislated on a domestic Scottish issue over the head of Holyrood"

The snag, of course, is that Westminster is currently in the process, for the first time in the nineteen-year history of devolution, of legislating on multiple devolved Scottish issues in defiance of a specific decision by the Scottish Parliament to withhold consent (or "going over the head of Holyrood" to put it more snappily).  It is doing so with Ruth Davidson's full-blooded support.  I can only say it is staggering that the FT didn't instantly notice this barefaced hypocrisy and challenge her on it.  The fact that they didn't betrays the mindset of the entire London establishment.  It's somehow instinctively understood that the constitutional conventions that make devolution work are optional (and really rather tiresome) when the SNP insist they must be upheld, but magically become set in stone if the subject in dispute is important to the DUP.

Ruth Davidson can't be forced to abandon her opposition to the current devolution settlement and to the Sewel Convention.  But what she can and must be forced to do is choose.  If she believes that Westminster has the right to disregard the Sewel Convention and overrule the Scottish Parliament on the huge range of devolved matters affected by the EU Withdrawal Bill, she must by definition also believe it has the right to overrule the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly on abortion law and marriage equality.  So which is it to be, Ruth?  And is there any chance of our hopeless media getting its act together and actually asking her that question?

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You won't be surprised to hear that I agree with Paul Kavanagh's verdict in The National that Nicola Sturgeon should make clear that "now is not the time" is simply not an acceptable answer, and that the Scottish Government will proceed with seeking a mandate for independence even if a Section 30 order is refused.  However, I do take issue with him on a couple of things.  Firstly, the point of seeking a Section 30 order is not to make a referendum "legally binding".  The 2014 referendum was actually not legally binding - a Yes vote would not have automatically triggered independence.  A better way of putting it is that the Section 30 order made the 2014 vote "politically binding" - it would have been unthinkable for Westminster not to legislate for independence in the event of a Yes vote.

Because of that, Paul believes the likely absence of a Section 30 order means an outright mandate for independence should be sought at the next Holyrood election, and not by means of a consultative referendum.  He thinks that any referendum held without a Section 30 order will be boycotted by the unionist side and would therefore be pointless, because it would be impossible to achieve a high enough turnout to make any Yes victory credible.  I'm not so sure about that.  If, for example, any Referendum Bill survives a legal challenge in the Supreme Court, it will very publicly become recognised as the law of the land, making a boycott that bit harder to justify.  I also feel that a Yes victory in a boycotted vote would be a lot more use to us than is widely understood at the moment.  It would mean that the anti-independence mandate of September 2014 is no longer definitive or unchallenged.  By all means, if the Supreme Court strikes down a Referendum Bill we should then use the next Holyrood election to seek an outright independence mandate, but I struggle to see the harm in pursuing a consultative referendum first.

Apart from anything else, it would give the UK government the dilemma of whether to mount a legal challenge.  It wouldn't have dared to do that in 2012 or 2013.  But it may well do in 2019, because it has come to believe there is never a price to be paid for playing to the British nationalist gallery and trampling on Scotland's democratic rights.  There's going to come a point where there will be a heavy price, and this could well be that moment.

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A pub quiz question for you - which part of Denmark is geographically much closer to Scotland than it is to any other part of Denmark?  Here's a video from the brilliant Phantom Power while you're thinking about that one...

Does the Sunday Herald really think the SNP should campaign to let another country decide our constitutional future again?

Naming no names, but it's been bitterly disappointing to see a small number of people on the pro-indy side making negative comments about yesterday's historic march.  Here's what I don't understand: I can see the logic (albeit I don't necessarily agree with it) of avoiding marches during election campaign periods when there's canvassing work to be done.  I can see the logic (albeit I don't necessarily agree with it) of saying there were dangers attached to the protest outside the BBC just before the 2014 referendum.  But what exactly was the problem with yesterday?  There is no election on the immediate horizon, and the march was simply making the positive case for independence.  It created visibility, excitement (lots of passers-by stopped to take photos) and a sense of momentum.  I can't see any downside, unless you're seriously worrying about the annoyance factor of a few minutes of traffic delays on a Saturday afternoon, which is getting into the realms of the ridiculous in a country that is well-used to coping with the minor disruption caused by Orange walks.

I'd have to conclude that the negativity in some quarters boils down to a cringe factor - a feeling that the pro-independence movement, uniquely among the political movements of the world, can only succeed by apologising for its existence and getting back into its box in case anyone finds the sight of it too irritating.  Good luck in trying to win people over to a massive constitutional change in that manner.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Herald seems to think the only significance of the march is that a couple of dozen Union Jack-waving counter-protestors turned up to shout at the tens of thousands of pro-indy marchers.  You'd be tempted to conclude that anyone could sabotage a march or rally of absolutely any size by just rounding up a handful of mates - although in practice I doubt if you'd get the same publicity for your stunt if the march or rally was about any other subject.  This appears to be an indy-specific phenomenon.

Despite being a pro-independence paper, the Sunday Herald are also now taking an official editorial position that Nicola Sturgeon should change policy and campaign for a second UK-wide referendum on EU membership.  As Dr Philippa Whitford pointed out, it would be a bit odd for the SNP to do that unless there was the slightest prospect of Labour and the Liberal Democrats agreeing to a referendum in which a 'double mandate' is required - meaning departure from the EU couldn't happen unless Scotland itself voted Leave.  Without that safeguard (and it's clearly a non-starter as far as the unionist parties are concerned), the SNP would be backing a referendum that would deny this country its right to self-determination, and thus breach the party's raison d'etre.  It's completely unthinkable.  And in any case, even with the SNP's support, a second EU vote still wouldn't happen anyway because of the realities of parliamentary arithmetic at Westminster.  The SNP would effectively be sending a message to the public that "we don't really need an independence referendum, because there's another way of staying in the EU", when we all know perfectly well that isn't true, and that an independence referendum is the only available way to preserve EU membership (or indeed even single market membership).  Why on earth would we try to sabotage our own lifeboat?

I would also note that it's rather disingenuous for the Sunday Herald editorial to claim that they're not asking Ms Sturgeon to make a choice between a second indyref and a second EU referendum, given that the thrust of Paul Hutcheon's front page piece is that the latter has to be "prioritised" over the former.  This, let's face it, is a newspaper that now seems to want the push for independence to be put firmly on the backburner to make way for an utterly doomed UK-wide campaign to cancel Brexit.  I hope (and this time am reasonably confident) that the SNP leadership will give short shrift to that idea.

Sorry, Mr Wishart, but you are factually wrong: there is no "indy-gap"

So, with a certain amount of weariness, I've taken a look at Pete Wishart's latest 'contribution to the debate' on the timing of a second independence referendum (at least this time it's not a phoney 'right of reply').  First things first: let's deal with the outright inaccuracy which essentially proves that Pete hasn't been bothering to properly read the many responses to his previous articles.  As I and others have pointed out to him again and again and again, his notion that there is a so-called 'indy-gap' (meaning that there is supposedly far less support for the holding of an early referendum that there is for independence itself) is simply not borne out by the evidence.  Both of the two most recent polls, from Ipsos-Mori and Panelbase respectively, have shown that support for an early referendum is essentially identical to support for independence.  But Pete isn't letting the evidence get in the way of his mythologising, and yesterday doubled down by ludicrously claiming that: "Optimal conditions are not when a significant gap exists between support for independence and support for an ‘early’ independence referendum. Every test of public opinion has shown that this gap is real..."

Every test?  What?  If the two most recent opinion polls on independence do not qualify as 'tests of public opinion', what the hell is he even talking about?  Pete can't be allowed to get away with this false claim indefinitely - he's been proved factually wrong on the 'indy-gap' point, and as the old saying goes, he's entitled to his own opinions but not to his own facts.

The alarm bells in the cynical part of my brain were ringing when I saw that Pete had started his post by noting that it was a good thing that the SNP depute leadership contest looked set to be dominated by the issue of indyref timing.  Pete of course pondered the idea of standing himself for depute on a "delay" platform, but decided against it because he didn't have enough support to mount a credible challenge.  I do hope that he isn't now planning to misrepresent a hypothetical victory for Keith Brown as an endorsement of "delay".  It's true that Mr Brown had until recently come across as the most sceptical of the three candidates about an early indyref, but he was always a long way from Pete's position of actively campaigning for the current mandate to be allowed to expire.  Personally, I'll be voting for Chris McEleny because I want to give the most emphatic thumbs-up possible to an early referendum, but regardless of which candidate wins, there will be no endorsement of the Wishart position.  I believe the Wishart position is essentially an unelectable one, and I also believe that Pete clearly acknowledged that fact by pulling out of the race.  You can't stand aside because of lack of support and then still claim a proxy victory later on.

In the second paragraph of his post, Pete says this: "We are so close to securing our historic objective that to throw away a victory that we’ve so patiently and constructively worked for over the decades through impatience would be the worst type of defeat." Would that really be the worst type of defeat?  What about if we opt not to use our mandate for a referendum, and then fail to secure another mandate for another twenty years?  (Twenty years is, after all, a mere four elections, and given the way the Additional Member System works, it's far from implausible that the pro-indy parties in combination could repeatedly fall just short of the magic number of 65 seats, even if the SNP itself remains relatively popular and manages to stay in minority government.)  And what if over that interminable period, there are prolonged spells where the polls make obvious that a referendum could have been won, but we're powerless to do anything about it because we don't have the parliamentary arithmetic to call a referendum?  That's a defeat every bit as real as a defeat in an early referendum.  It takes independence - you know, the prize we've so patiently and constructively worked for over the decades - off the table for a generation, and it does so because we threw away a golden opportunity out of fear.  How is that sort of defeat any better than one that we might suffer by having the moral courage of using our mandate and actually trusting the verdict of the electorate?  It plainly isn't any better.  It's a million times worse.  Democracy is something we should be running towards, not away from.

Pete says: "I want to see evidence [the referendum] can be won."  That's a bit disingenuous, isn't it?  He doesn't want evidence that it can be won, because we already have that.  He actually wants evidence that it definitely will be won, which is a lovely idea, but in the real world no such evidence is even possible.  Huge and rapid swings in public opinion happen frequently during the official campaign stage of referendums around the world, so even if Yes started out with 65% support, there would be no guarantees of victory at all.

He also says: "I want [the referendum] held at the time of our choosing when the optimum conditions are in place for success."  Again, the certainty of being able to hold the vote at the time of our own choosing is a beautiful thought, but is completely impracticable unless he's planning to abolish parliamentary elections.  The main barrier to being able to hold a referendum at the best possible moment is the possibility that there will be no pro-independence majority at Holyrood after 2021.  It's Pete who is arguing we should just recklessly take our chances with that, and his only justification is the absurd claim that if we can't win a pro-indy majority at Holyrood, we wouldn't have been able to win a referendum anyway.  Really?  If we win 48% of the seats in the 2021 election, it would be completely impossible to win 51% of the vote at any time between then and 2026?  A seven-year-old child would be able to spot the flaw in that argument.

The truly 'pragmatic' thing to do is recognise that we have a mandate, that it's a precious thing that may not come our way again for a very long time, and that it therefore shouldn't be lightly squandered.  That doesn't mean holding a referendum next week - it means choosing the best available moment between now and May 2021, when the mandate expires.  That's where the centre of gravity for pragmatism lies - and not in the pie-in-the-sky notion that there will be some ideal moment in the distant future where the stars will align perfectly for a nailed-on victory, and that all we have to do is wait long enough for this magical process to occur.

Pete claims: "[Optimal conditions] are not when we are less than one year away from having lost over one third of our independence supporting MPs to candidates who had as their main campaigning message ‘No to a second referendum’". The problem with this theory is that we don't know what would have happened if the SNP had stood up to the uncompromising nature of the Tory message with an equally uncompromising "Say Yes to an Indyref" message of their own. It's possible that a third of the MPs wouldn't have lost if that had been done. Pete has previously claimed he has canvassing evidence that there was no appetite for a stronger pro-indy message from the SNP, but you'll have to forgive me if I'm a tad sceptical about anecdotal claims from a less-than-objective source. What we do know from polling evidence is that large numbers of people who voted SNP in 2015 went on to abstain in 2017. That suggests to me that there were a lot of people out there who wanted to be inspired, but didn't hear what they were looking for.

Pete says: "Optimal conditions are also not when a majority of our fellow Scots continue to tell us they still oppose independence by a significant margin when public opinion is tested." Sorry, but what is a "significant margin"? It's only a few weeks since an Ipsos-Mori telephone poll produced figures of Yes 48%, No 52%. Is Pete seriously arguing that four percentage points - a lead that is within the standard margin of error - is a "significant margin"? (It's true that Panelbase have shown a bigger gap since then, but that's simply a 'house effect' of a different firm's methodology. Nobody knows the true state of play in exact detail, and it's perfectly conceivable that Ipsos-Mori is right and that public opinion is split roughly 50/50.)

Pete claims: "That last five percent we need to win over in a renewed referendum will be the hardest five percent we have ever had to convert. It is a five percent that is deeply dug in with over five years of intense debate about our countries constitutional future." Hang on, hang on. If these No voters are as hopelessly entrenched as Pete claims, why have there have been several polls since 2014 (including one as recently as last year) showing Yes with more than 50% of the vote? It doesn't make sense, does it? In reality, polling trends since the last referendum clearly show that there is sufficient fluidity and volatility among the electorate for either side to have a realistic chance of winning. It just depends on who fights the most effective campaign.

Unfortunately, if Pete gets his way, we'll run away from the battle and we'll never find out what would have happened. But when another twenty years have passed and no referendum has been held and independence is further away than ever, at least we'll be able to console ourselves by saying "we didn't lose a second time". (So what?)

Why the Tories want the SNP to let their mandate for a referendum expire

Not for the first time, David Halliday has hit the nail on the head with this tweet -

"If not having an independence referendum before 2021 is sensible then why has Ruth Davidson been fighting so hard to make sure that that's what happens?"

If you find yourself doing (or considering doing) exactly what your opponents want you to do, it's always worth stepping into their shoes and considering why they want you to do it so badly.  From a Tory perspective, there are a number of very good reasons why an early independence referendum is something to dread -

1) The imminence of Brexit means that Project Fear would work in both directions this time.  It will be easy enough for the Yes campaign to produce a steady stream of "There were warnings tonight about the impact of Brexit on..." stories.  (How easy it will be to get the broadcasters to give those stories equal prominence is another matter, but an official campaign can help set the news agenda to some extent.)  If voters are convinced that there are credible reasons to fear the uncertainty of Brexit, the effect of fear in the campaign may be neutralised in a way that was never possible in 2014.

2) Theresa May is absolutely the worst person to be a figurehead for the No campaign.  She is tone-deaf in respect of Scotland.  She could single-handedly lose the referendum for No.

3) Jeremy Corbyn clearly has some appeal in Scotland, but an independence referendum would not be his natural terrain.  As was the case during the EU referendum, he probably wouldn't look terribly interested.  He would also say random things about "SNP austerity" that just wouldn't have much resonance for people in that particular context.

4) Given that the Tories are now Scotland's second party at almost every level of representation, it would be hard to justify sitting back and allowing Labour to be the cuddly public face of the No campaign once again.  And yet the alternative - an identifiably Tory-led No campaign - carries enormous risks.  Notwithstanding Ruth Davidson's much-vaunted "popularity", the Tories remain the most disliked of the major political parties in Scotland.  In a binary-choice referendum, there's not much use having 25% of the population solidly behind you if another 65% hate your guts.

5) The Vow may be a trick that was only ever going to work once.  On the pro-independence side, we tend to think of what could go right or wrong in a referendum purely in terms of victory or defeat, but for the Tories, giving too much ground on devolution is a fate almost as bad as defeat.  If a Yes vote looked like a realistic possibility with a few days to go, they would have to decide whether to make very painful concessions of new powers, or whether (and this is more probable) to offer absolutely nothing and just hope for the best.  Neither option looks too appetising for them in advance.

The weak enslave themselves

Yesterday was a genuinely dispiriting day for me, because for the first time I discovered I'd been blocked by an SNP parliamentarian - in spite of the fact that I hadn't said anything remotely abusive or insulting towards him.  I suppose in a way it was a useful moment of clarity, because it gave the lie to the notion that Pete Wishart has been merely trying to promote a constructive debate on the timing of an independence referendum.  Clearly the function of the rest of us was just to dutifully agree with his verdict that the SNP's mandate for a referendum should (probably) be allowed to expire.

Having been blocked by Pete, it's hard not to feel doubly cynical about Andrew Tickell's piece in The National yesterday, which lauds Pete's contribution as some kind of breakthrough in thoughtfulness and nuance.  What particularly raises a hollow laugh is when Andrew quotes one of Pete's straw men in its entirety and then says without a trace of irony: "Wishart doesn’t accept this view. Neither do I."  Let me just reiterate as the person who Pete was nominally "replying" to in his letter that the view I actually expressed is the opposite of the one he ascribed to me.  I do not believe, and have never claimed, that calling a referendum will automatically create a majority in favour of independence.  What I do believe, on a solid evidential basis, is that any significant changes in public opinion (which could be in the direction of either Yes or No) are far more likely to occur when a referendum campaign is actually underway.  That's one of the reasons why it's such a mistake to base decisions on referendum timing on minor changes (or lack of changes) in opinion poll results.

In truth, it's no surprise whatever to see Andrew backing the best available voice of caution in the SNP (or, to be blunt, the voice of indefinite inaction).  Practically the first thing Andrew did after the 2014 defeat was lecture Yes supporters on how they shouldn't even be openly referring to the possibility of a second referendum.  "Stop it" he said bluntly.  He had previously given the impression that he felt that even the 2014 referendum had been called very prematurely - which raises an intriguing question.  Are we closer to victory, or further away from it, as a result of the first indyref being held?  It may seem obvious that we're closer, because opinion polls show that most people who were won over to Yes during the 2014 campaign have remained rock-solid in their support.  But if we choose to take the view that suffering a first defeat means that the threshold for calling a second vote must be much higher, and that some kind of near-certainty of victory is now required before pulling the trigger, then it follows that we're much further away from independence simply as a result of having held a referendum in 2014.  A Yes vote of 48% in 2018 makes independence far more distant than a 33% Yes vote did in 2013.  That's perverse, upside-down logic, but it's absolutely the position unless we banish the doctrine of "a first defeat was thinkable, a second defeat is not" - which if left unchallenged will ensure that in all probability a second referendum is never held, because guarantees of victory will never be available.

I think we should come back to the light.  Calling a referendum in 2014 was not a mistake.  The converts we won over back then were not worthless.  We're closer to independence than we were five years ago, not further away.  All of those statements can be true as long as we're not hellbent on making them untrue.  There's a line from an early 1980s Doctor Who story that keeps popping into my head: "The weak enslave themselves."  We're in danger of enslaving ourselves to the fear of defeat.  The one thing that will genuinely guarantee that Scotland remains part of the UK indefinitely is an indefinite failure to hold a second independence referendum.

Of course Andrew Tickell would regard what I've just said as macho posturing.  This is the sneer with which he ends his article: "Demand as many referendums as you like. Extol courage. Blast faint-hearts. Shout and thunder at folk like Wishart raising their experiences of the communities they serve and know well."  

Well, it cuts both ways, doesn't it?  Say that the time is never right.  Suck the life out of others at every available opportunity.  Tell them to pack up and go home.  Lecture them on how they should leave the grown-up stuff to their betters.  But at least take ownership of the fact that to all intents and purposes you are arguing that Scotland should not become an independent country at any time in the foreseeable future, along with all of the consequences of that in respect of a Hard Brexit and the undermining of devolution.  Andrew and Pete Wishart both describe Scotland as "weary of big constitutional choices" - but it is a simple fact that the rejection of making a choice is a conscious rejection of independence, and an embrace of a Hard Brexit.  That is not what I joined the SNP for.

I see that Jason Michael of Random Public Journal is saying that if the SNP allow their mandate for a referendum to expire, he will look away from the SNP and find another vehicle for independence.  I don't take that view, because I don't think there will be another credible vehicle.  But being blocked by Wishart simply because I refuse to abandon my support for an independence referendum is perhaps my lowest point since joining the SNP, and I'm beginning to understand how people's enthusiasm is going to just wither and die almost overnight if the party leadership allow fear to win the day and let the hard-won mandate expire.  I'm still hoping and praying that doesn't happen.  Over to you, Nicola.

The Gathering

A guest post by Jason Baird of the National Yes Registry

Many thanks to James for the generous opportunity of a guest post on Scot Goes Pop. For all those who have not yet heard of the National Yes Registry or what we do, here is a short film giving a little of our history, explaining who we are and what IndyApp does. It was made as an easy introduction to us for the audience at the SIC Build conference last year.  It includes a reference to the successful crowdfunder that has allowed us to continue finishing the IndyApp and organise our next big grass-roots The Gathering #1 Event: the real subject of this blog post.

As part of the interesting recent discussions between James, Pete Wishart MP (and others) over the optimum timing for IndyRef 2, I thought folk might be interested in some context from a grass-roots group perspective. James’ call for the Yes movement to become much more pro-active seems the perfect time to let interested folk know just how pro-active the grass-roots are at the moment and exactly what the local Indy groups have planned.

The Gathering #1 is being held just a matter of weeks before the SNP 'spring' Conference and so hopefully will not go unnoticed by those present at Aberdeen. Think how a 'sold-out' and vibrant national Gathering of the groups in Stirling will strengthen IndyRef2 options at that conference. It should also help inspire the rest of the wider Yes movement into more and wider action. A final thought before you read the main blog: the unionist Labour Party in Scotland had their conference recently with a reported attendance of 400 delegates. Our venue for the Gathering has a capacity of 450. Need we say more?

The Gathering #1: All Groups Welcome

As promised, we are now organising the first national gathering of the Yes movement’s local groups - a place where the groups can define for themselves how best to organise and work together in preparation for winning IndyRef2.

Where?
Stirling: The Albert Halls, Albert Place, Dumbarton Rd, Stirling FK8 2QL

When?
9am - 5:45pm, Sunday the 27th of May (Bank Holiday weekend). In the evening there will be a separately-ticketed, fully licensed Ceilidh Dinner. 7:30pm -12:00pm

How much?
The Gathering: (400@) £14each. Ceilidh Dinner: (220@) £20each. Purchase codes will be supplied direct to the groups. Prices include full days catering and Paypal booking fees. No profit will be made and all event accounts will be published.

Why a Gathering?
The task is to provide a new form of participatory grass-roots leadership, one that gives direction at a national level but fully understands, protects and strengthens group autonomy at a local level. This can only be achieved through active participation and consent by all groups. Who, but the groups themselves, are capable of providing this new form of leadership?

The Gathering’s Concept
This will not be another 'top table' Yes Conference, finished when the speakers have said their piece and everyone has gone home.

Instead, Gathering #1 will be the start of a collective process of group mobilisation. One where individual participation, group consent, popular support and new technology come together to bind Yes into an effective, non-party political, campaigning force.

A process that has local groups, their members and all of Scotland’s different community needs at its centre.

Purpose
This is about collective grass-roots legitimacy in action.

The Gathering is where the groups will begin to set out a practical campaign agenda for themselves and the movement, one that naturally comes with the authority of its activists.

Autonomous groups lead themselves, so the real task of the Gathering is to identify: shared experiences, campaign ideas, resources and proposals that the groups collectively feel are of strategic importance to the movement. These will then be posted on the new IndyApp for the newly networked groups all across the country to assess and decide upon for themselves.

Autonomy
This is the grass-root movement’s greatest strength.

The final say in local campaigning should always be in the hands of activists who know and understand their communities best. Local group autonomy enables Yes campaigners to select from the movement’s full range of valid independence messages and tailor them to suit their own community’s needs. The wider the variety of community groups participating, the more powerful our campaigning advantage becomes.

Building momentum
If Gathering #1 is the success we believe it will be, its format can be refined by the groups to become a regular event on the campaign calendar. Gatherings organised at local, regional and national levels, with all the new ideas generated at them, could then be accessed across the grassroots using the IndyApp National Forum.

Event Goal 1: On the day
Initial ideas will be generated by all delegates within workshops, followed by presentations of each workshop’s findings to the entire Gathering, for us all to debate and assess.

By the end of the day each workshop’s findings, presentation and identified campaign topic will be posted onto the new IndyApp National Forum, to allow every local group member across the country access and opportunity to participate.

Event Goal 2: Extending participation
All groups and all group members across the country can then participate using their group’s Local Forum on the new IndyApp. This is where autonomous group memberships can share, discuss and develop any Gathering proposals that interest them. Groups can also post their own proposals and ideas onto the National Forum for the consideration of the movement and to canvas support from fellow groups.

Organisation: It’s in the detail
Group ideas and proposals posted onto the National Forum that find support among fellow groups will need to be taken forward in a coordinated way. Turning good ideas into practical campaigns and action plans can be achieved through IndyApp facilitated National Committees.

These committees are created by (and made up of) interested group members and committed activists from all around the country. An effective way to harness the Yes movement’s wide base of specialist knowledge, experience and campaigning enthusiasm.

All National Committees will set themselves up to operate within tight time frames and remits.

Event Goal 3: Gathering Committees
The five most popular and well developed proposals will each have National Committees created at the Gathering on the new IndyApp. Made up of volunteer activists who want to help put the Gathering’s proposals into practical action, these committees are also where any interested local group member can make direct contact to join, or offer their specialist knowledge to help advance its purpose.

Event Goal 4: Accessing all talents
No good idea should ever lack support, and no activist should ever be short of a good idea to support!

The Gathering’s format together with the new IndyApp platform helps provide a simple way for all group members to easily follow, make contact and practically participate in developing ideas and proposals presented at Gathering #1. Whether they were able to attend the event on the day or not.

Equally, local groups who post ideas on the National Forum can also open National Committees of their own and encourage participation in their projects from right across the entire knowledge base of the IndyApp group network.

Calling All IndyApp Groups!
Success of the Gathering as a grassroots leadership strategy rests on each participating group’s individual ability to communicate effectively. First, within their own memberships, and then directly with one another as autonomous groups. The IndyApp has been created on behalf of the groups to provide exactly those capabilities.

Please ensure you get your entire membership logged in as soon as possible, in anticipation of Gathering #1 and the all-new communication forums that are coming to support it. If you are a member of a group on the IndyApp but your ‘front door’ is still inactive, please contact us and we will help you get your group ready for the big event.

If your group is not yet on the IndyApp but would like to participate, please complete the sign-up form and we will respond as quickly as we can.

A right of reply to Pete Wishart: why "losing is not an option" is an immature belief that would lead to the quiet death of the independence cause

As you may have seen doing the rounds on Twitter, the letters page of this month's iScot magazine contains a contribution from Pete Wishart MP, billed as a "right of reply response to James Kelly's article Why the SNP must use its mandate to call an Indyref".  I have to say I'm rather bemused by it, because with one possible minor exception it doesn't actually engage with the points I made in the article at all.  Quite the contrary, in fact - it implies that I said things I didn't say, or that I said the opposite of, which suggests to me that if Pete is replying to anyone, it's to an imaginary person who is not me.   My article was in itself a reply to Pete's 'Braveheart' piece in The National, and to a large extent all that Pete's "reply" does is reiterate the points he already made in his original article about why the SNP's hard-won mandate for a second independence referendum should be allowed to expire (albeit he fleshes some of them out a bit).  Well, this is my own right of reply to his "reply", and I'm actually going to try to take things forward by tackling some of his arguments and claims directly.

First things first: Pete says that the only thing that dictates his attitude to the timing of an independence referendum is winning it.  He obviously thinks that point is a no-brainer, but is it?  Isn't there also the small matter of honour in politics, and carrying through a solemn commitment made to people who voted for you in good faith?  We must never forget that before the June 2017 general election, the Scottish Parliament voted to hold an independence referendum in this current Holyrood term, meaning before May 2021.  People were then urged to vote SNP on the basis that if the party won a majority of Scottish seats at Westminster, that would constitute a "triple lock" mandate for the referendum.  A comfortable majority of seats was duly secured.  If Pete thinks that no SNP supporters took the 'triple lock' commitment seriously or cared about it, I would suggest he urgently catches up with the writings of Thomas Widmann, a pro-indy blogger with Danish citizenship, who listened to the SNP leadership's promise about an independence referendum before Brexit, and made hugely important personal decisions about whether to remain in Scotland on that specific basis.  He now doesn't know what to do, because it's so difficult to read whether that promise is actually going to be honoured, at least in part (ie. we already know the originally planned timing is likely to slip at least a bit).

Pete writes at length about the canvass results the SNP received in his own constituency.  It's a statement of the obvious that the Tories were gaining traction with their ultra-simplistic 'No to Indyref2' message among people who didn't want Indyref2, but Pete also claims that he never met a single person who was refusing to vote SNP because the party wasn't being strong enough in its support for a new referendum.  I'd suggest we'd all be well advised to take the implication of that claim with a heavy dose of salt, because there is ample polling evidence that large numbers of SNP voters from 2015 abstained in 2017 rather than switching to another party.  By far the most plausible explanation for that phenomenon is the failure of the SNP leadership to find a suitably inspiring pitch on independence.  But even if we accept Pete's contention that pro-referendum voters were broadly happy with what the SNP were saying during the election, isn't it rather problematical (or fatal) for Pete's argument that what the SNP were saying during the election is the opposite of what Pete is saying now?  There was no talk during the campaign of "we want a mandate from you, but we probably won't use it unless everything seems perfect".  The call was for a mandate which was actually going to be used.  It's a bit meaningless to pray in aid your belief that pro-referendum folk were satisfied with what you were offering at the election if you're also arguing that what you offered should not be delivered now that the votes are safely in the bag.

It seems to me there is a very obvious subtext in Pete's letter that the holding of an independence referendum should be subordinate to considerations of what is going to win or lose the SNP votes and seats in a Westminster election.  That sort of thinking really ought to be alien to a party that is serious about achieving independence, but it actually doesn't even make sense on its own terms, because in all probability a pre-2021 referendum would precede the next Westminster election, and indeed every other election apart from by-elections.  Yes, a snap general election is still possible, but the strengthening of Theresa May's personal position means it's considerably less likely than it was.

To turn now to the central thrust of Pete's letter, he repeatedly uses language like "Losing again is simply unthinkable" and "losing again should simply not be an option".  That's an argument that has great emotional resonance for some people, who think back to how they felt on September 19th, 2014, and want to avoid feeling that way ever again.  It's also, I'm afraid, an extremely immature argument, because the nature of holding any democratic vote at any time is that defeat is always an option.  Absolutely always.  I can give you chapter and verse on referendums from around the world in which one side or the other has lost a commanding lead in the blink of an eye.  It is simply a statement of fact that if we hold a referendum, we might win it and we might lose it.  But here's the the thing - if we want independence, we can only get it by holding a referendum, which means we have to risk losing again sooner or later.  Pete is arguing that we must wait until we have "optimum conditions" that will "ensure" and "guarantee" victory, but those conditions will simply never exist in the real world.  His prospectus is a recipe for what you might call the 'heat death' of the independence cause - the SNP would continue nominally arguing for independence into infinity, but the rallying cry would be the hollow shell of "let's keep preparing for those optimum conditions!", which will always be supposedly around the corner, but will never actually arrive.

In my article that Pete is nominally "replying" to, I turned his call for "pragmatism" on its head by pointing out that pragmatism actually demands that we hold a referendum when we can, and not when we can't.  In other words, even if his "optimum conditions" were theoretically achievable, they wouldn't be much use to us if they happened to coincide with a time when there was no pro-independence majority at Holyrood, and therefore a referendum couldn't be held.  To the limited extent that Pete indirectly addresses that point, his answer is totally unsatisfactory.  He claims that if the pro-indy camp can't win a majority at Holyrood, there would be very little chance of winning a referendum anyway.  Frankly, that's an absolute nonsense, and I can't believe he really thinks that.  There are any number of reasons why pro-independence voters might vote for an anti-independence party (especially Labour) at a parliamentary election but then still vote for independence in a referendum.  We saw plenty of evidence in opinion polls last year that a minority of people were moving from SNP back to Labour but were still backing independence.  The idea that if pro-indy parties "only" win 48% of the seats at a Holyrood election, it would then be virtually impossible to achieve a pro-independence majority vote at any point over the subsequent five years, which is essentially what Pete is arguing, is risible and not worthy of serious discussion.  The only thing that would make a Yes vote impossible in those circumstances is that we wouldn't be able to hold a referendum in the first place without a pro-indy parliamentary majority - and that's the trap Pete is leading us into.  He tells us what a tragedy it would be if we were to hold a referendum prematurely and lose it when it could have been won later - but how would that be any more of a tragedy than spurning the chance of holding a referendum when we actually have the mandate, and as a result being utterly powerless to hold a referendum for potentially decades thereafter, including at times when we might easily have won?  That scenario could very easily unfold if a minority of pro-indy voters revert indefinitely to voting for the Labour party for cultural reasons.

Pete seems incredulous at the notion that you should use a mandate for a referendum just because you have one.  I suppose that depends on whether you believe that pro-indy majorities at Holyrood are as plentiful as grains of sand on a beach, or whether you recognise that under the Additional Member voting system they're actually murderously hard to come by, and they should be treated as precious when they come along, and not casually squandered.  We're not talking about a referendum next week - by all means let's choose the "optimum moment" between now and May 2021 when our mandate expires.  But going beyond that date on a wing and a prayer is a different matter entirely.

Now to deal with a few miscellaneous red herrings that Pete throws in -

* I'm not quite sure what the relevance of this is, but he claims that failure in the 1979 devolution referendum (thanks to the 40% rule) led to the near-wipeout of the SNP at Westminster.  Not so.  The SNP had gone into reverse well before the referendum - by 1978, Labour had shown itself to be serious enough about devolution that it started winning back 'soft nationalist' votes.  It's highly likely the SNP would have lost seats regardless of the outcome of the referendum.

* He suggests that the lesson of the 1995 Quebec vote is that a second defeat can set back an independence movement for a generation.  In actual fact, the pro-independence Parti Québécois continued to hold an absolute parliamentary majority for eight years after the 1995 defeat.  Because of excessive caution it didn't take advantage of that enviable situation, and as a result hasn't had the arithmetic to call a referendum at any time since 2003.  (And one of the main reasons why it keeps failing to win elections is because it continually ties itself up in knots with a muddled prospectus of "we want a referendum, but not yet", which reassures nobody and inspires nobody.)

* He ascribes to me (or to the imaginary person he's responding to) the belief that simply calling a referendum would make a decisive shift towards Yes likely.  I have never said that, and indeed I have repeatedly pointed out that the opposite may happen, including in the very article Pete is "replying" to.  I believe this is projection on his part - he's so preoccupied with "guarantees" and "certainties" that he believes anyone who argues against him must automatically be saying that a Yes victory is already guaranteed.  Completely untrue.  I simply take the grown-up view that we might win if we fight a good campaign, that we might lose if we fight a bad campaign (or if we fight a good campaign and are unlucky), and that the future is fundamentally unknowable.  We can help shape the future but we can't possess it in advance.

* He talks of something called the "indy-gap", meaning that support for an early referendum runs below support for independence itself.  But is that actually true?  The most recent Ipsos-Mori poll showed that just under half of people who expressed a view wanted independence...and just under half of people who expressed a view wanted an independence referendum within the next three years.  So simple question, then - where's the indy-gap?  To claim that it exists, at best you'd be cherry-picking only the polling numbers that suit your argument.

It's time to get up off our knees

Yesterday a junior minister in the UK government shocked people who believed "The Vow", by haughtily dismissing the Scottish Government as a body that is roughly equivalent to Lincolnshire County Council, and thus subordinate to herself.

Without doubt this is how @GovUK now sees devolution - the “granting” of powers by junior ministers at their whim to distant and very limited local institutions. So much for the rhetoric of #indyref - remember a “partnership of equals” ? https://t.co/IauO6WQtu8

— Michael Russell (@Feorlean) March 28, 2018

And of course today Theresa May has done a "one year to Brexit" whistlestop tour of the four nations of the UK, boasting she will keep her "precious" country united - with the implication being that she will achieve that objective by coercion, having already broken last year with four decades of British government policy by decreeing that Scotland did not have an automatic right to democratic self-determination at a time of its own choosing.

Let's not forget also the Scottish Tories planting a fake story in the press a couple of days ago about supposed "proof" that the SNP are plotting a second independence referendum, allowing Ruth Davidson to let off a pre-prepared "sigh" on Twitter as she pretended to be spontaneously reacting to the "news" - as if this country making its own choice about its own future at a crucial moment in its history is somehow a tiresome prospect.

*sighs* https://t.co/VywwtjcuVF

— Ruth Davidson (@RuthDavidsonMSP) March 27, 2018

Make no mistake - we on the pro-independence side of the argument are playing our part in allowing this contemptuous treatment of Scotland to carry on, because until we get back to talking with much more confidence and clarity about our plans for a second independence referendum, the Tories will remain in the enviable position where just saying "no" and constantly "sighing" and "tutting" and muttering "gie us peace" will bring them a reward of sorts.   That sort of rubbish plays well with around 25% or 30% of the Scottish electorate, which is all the Tories need for now because they and their media allies have conveniently redefined "success" as meaning around 25% of the vote.  But as soon as a referendum is actually underway, the threshold for triumph reverts to being 50% of the vote - which is what nature intended, after all.  The Tories will suddenly remember to their intense discomfort that openly boasting about denying Scotland its democratic rights, and treating our country as nothing more than an English county council, carries a severe electoral penalty rather than a perverse reward.

I don't know about you, but I think it's high time we really gave Ruth Davidson something to "sigh" about.

Alas, she's "sighing" at a fake story. Retweet if you agree we should give Ruth something to really "sigh" about. #ScotRef #UseTheMandatehttps://t.co/iGDtBIITOH

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) March 27, 2018

This is actually incredibly simple.  The No campaign won a narrow victory in the 2014 referendum on the specific basis that Scotland would remain in the EU if it stayed in the UK.  There are countless on-the-record examples of them saying precisely that, and without qualification.  It doesn't really matter whether they were deliberately lying or whether they said it in good faith - all that matters is that many people voted No on a false premise.  Circumstances have changed beyond all recognition in the last three-and-a-half years, and Scotland now has a self-evident moral right to revisit its decision.  The arguments against that logic are incredibly contrived and unconvincing - for example Duncan Hothersall's claim that the No side only ever meant that a vote against independence would keep Scotland in the EU for the time being, and that there were never any guarantees offered about what would happen a couple of years down the line.  The only reason that sort of daft revisionist statement isn't universally ridiculed is that the SNP leadership have taken a break from forcefully pressing the case for a new referendum - mainly because of the psychological shock of losing a handful of former heartland seats as they completed their landslide victory in the general election last June.  But a year is more than enough time to get over that shock and to put the handsome mandate they received in its proper perspective.  It's getting close to the point where we really ought to be firmly back on the front foot about Indyref 2.

To her credit, Nicola Sturgeon has not rowed back from her timetable for making an announcement about a referendum (one way or the other) in the autumn of this year.  Some people even think she will preempt that at the SNP's conference in June.  Either way, we're getting very close to a fork in the road, which means that if we as individuals want to influence the decision, the time to speak out is right now, and over the next few weeks to come.  Some well-meaning people always say in situations like this that we should just "trust Nicola", but this is not really a matter of SNP internal loyalty - this is about our country's destiny, and it's something that all five million people who live here have a stake in.  There are influential voices in the SNP, such as Pete Wishart, openly arguing that the party should allow its hard-won mandate for a referendum to expire, which makes it all the more important that those of us who think such a course of action would be a catastrophic error are also heard, and equally loudly.

As you know, I disagree with Peter A Bell about there being any realistic chance of a referendum actually being held in this calendar year, which is why I don't feel able to use his #Referendum2018 hashtag.  But a referendum before the SNP's mandate expires in May 2021 is perfectly doable, and is an absolute moral imperative.  Indeed, the SNP entered into a solemn contract with the Scottish people last June by saying that if they won a majority of Scottish seats at Westminster, a referendum would follow.  Many people voted SNP on that basis, and they have a right to expect that contract will be honoured.  Those voters have won the right to the choice they voted for.  And that's what holding a referendum is ultimately all about - a free choice over Scotland's post-Brexit future.  It's not about tactical considerations of whether winning is already assured, as Pete Wishart would have us believe.  (Although, as it happens, the 48% Yes vote in the most recent opinion poll is probably just about the best platform any pro-independence campaign can realistically hope for going into a new referendum campaign.)

The Tories say that the polls show that people in Scotland don't want an early referendum.  That's categorically not true - polls actually show a contradictory picture depending on how the question is asked, and indeed depending on which firm asks the question.  But here's the thing - it wouldn't even matter if the Tories were right about the polls.  In this country (which can mean either Scotland or the United Kingdom) we don't decide electoral mandates by YouGov findings - we do it at the ballot box.  And the results of both the Holyrood and Westminster elections were absolutely clear.  The SNP have an impeccable 'triple lock' mandate for a referendum, and we should stop apologising for that and start implementing it.  There should be a referendum before 2021.  Ideally, it should be held with a Section 30 order.  If Westminster refuse, we should go ahead with a consultative referendum without a Section 30 order.  If the Supreme Court block such a vote, we should then use the next Holyrood election as a de facto referendum - a virtually foolproof backstop option that cannot realistically be vetoed, blocked or boycotted.

I would suggest #ScotRef #UseTheMandate as a more inclusive and constructive alternative to the #Referendum2018 hashtag.  I know some people might not be entirely comfortable with "Use The Mandate" simply because the Marmite figure of Tommy Sheridan has been using those words quite a bit recently, but he wasn't the first person to utter them, and he doesn't own them.

Independence is not the eccentric pursuit of a tiny minority.  It's the settled will of almost half of the population - a state of affairs that warrants rather more self-confidence on the Yes side than we're currently exhibiting.  Let's get up off our knees, and get on with the job.

If you want to get a Section 30 order, you first have to be serious about holding a referendum without one

My interest was caught by Peter A Bell's blogpost the other day about Green MSP Ross Greer's comments on Indyref 2, and not for the first time I find myself half-agreeing with Peter and half-disagreeing.  I certainly agree that Greer, in arguing that a Section 30 order is essential before a referendum can go ahead, is a siren voice who could potentially lead us onto the rocks - not ideologically or philosophically, but simply in strategic terms.  Greer suggests that we should forget all about holding a referendum without Westminster's consent and instead concentrate on "creating the political leverage to get the Section 30 order we need" - but the obvious point he's overlooked is that embarking on a process that could lead to a non-Westminster-approved referendum is in itself the sort of leverage that could actually produce a Section 30 order.  It's arguably very unlikely that anything else would even be capable of creating sufficient leverage (with the possible exception of an early general election in which the SNP make net gains - but of course the triggering of an early election is not in the gift of anyone on the pro-indy side).  There's no point in calling for the creation of leverage if in the same breath you're arguing that we should throw the best chance of leverage we have into the bin.

Greer says: "The idea of us being in a situation where we had to attempt independence with the absolute resistance of the UK government, I don’t think, would make independence actually possible."  Does he not understand that this stance, if maintained, would give the UK government a very simple method by which they can make independence "impossible"?  All they'd have to do is just keep saying "no" to a referendum.  Job done.  Scotland would have no leverage at all.

Think back to the first indyref.  Why did the UK government grant a Section 30 order for that one?  They didn't do it out of  the goodness of their hearts, that's for sure.  They did it because the SNP initially took the view that a Section 30 order wasn't needed and were talking seriously about going ahead without one.  That was dangerous for the UK government, who risked losing any say over the format of the vote (for example whether there would be a Devo Max option), and also risked being faced with a dilemma over whether to take legal action to stop the referendum - which might or might not have succeeded, but would have been politically damaging either way.  A credible threat of an "unapproved" referendum would generate a similar set of risks for London now.

In many ways, the strategic logic is similar to that of the Continuity Bill.  The Scottish Government would much prefer a deal with London to protect devolution, but paradoxically by preparing the ground for exploiting a no-deal scenario, you make a deal far more likely to happen.  But of course there's always just a chance that London will still prove intransigent, in which case you have to fall back on the Continuity Bill - in that sense it's an each-way bet.  Perhaps that's what scares people about using the same tactic to extract a Section 30 order - if it didn't work, we'd actually have to press ahead with an "unapproved" referendum.  But would that really be so awful?  If a referendum bill was passed without a Section 30 order and the Supreme Court subsequently upheld it, it would become the law of the land and the "fears" of a unionist boycott would probably recede.  If the Supreme Court didn't uphold it, the vote wouldn't happen anyway, but at least we'd then have political and legal clarity which would lead us inexorably towards using a Holyrood election to seek an outright mandate for independence.

Greer raises a specific concern about unionist-controlled local authorities refusing to cooperate with a referendum held without a Section 30 order.  I'm obviously not a legal expert, so I'm willing to be corrected on this, but it seems intuitively likely that there are ways to deal with that problem.  It's surely of some significance that powers over local government are devolved to Scotland.

Incidentally, I'd also suggest it's rather important that Labour and the Liberal Democrats (with the eccentric exception of Mike Rumbles) have created a precedent by voting in favour of the Continuity Bill, in spite of the Presiding Officer's opinion that it exceeds the parliament's powers.  That will make it harder for either party to credibly argue that the SNP are doing something terribly wrong by passing a referendum bill over which there is some legal doubt.  I don't say that in any sort of triumphalist "gotcha" way - I think Labour and the Lib Dems have done absolutely the right thing over the Continuity Bill, and they may even have done it for the right reasons.  But it's created new facts on the ground, just the same.

Where I part company with Peter A Bell is his belief that Greer's flawed thinking on strategy is symptomatic of a major difference in approach between the Greens and the SNP.  In reality, Greer's views are shared by some senior people in the SNP, while some take the opposite view, and others are somewhere in between.  I've no idea which camp Nicola Sturgeon is in, and unless Peter has some sort of inside knowledge, I think he's in danger of projecting his own beliefs onto her.  This isn't first and foremost an SNP v Green problem - there's an internal SNP debate on strategy that needs to be won.

*  *  *

If you're an SNP supporter in the Penicuik ward, don't forget to vote in the local by-election today.  The SNP won the popular vote in the ward last year, but this is exactly the sort of place where Labour have prospered in recent months, so it could be a tight contest and every vote is important.  (The Tories are in with a serious chance as well.)

Dramatic poll boost for independence campaign as SNP open up comfortable lead - and almost HALF want a new indyref within just THREE YEARS

Do you remember, around a year ago, before anyone even suspected that Theresa May was going to call a snap election, there was an Ipsos-Mori telephone poll that showed a 50/50 split on the independence question?  We marvelled at how phone polling, which during the long indyref campaign had been much more No-friendly than online polling, was suddenly so favourable for Yes.  If you've bought into what the mainstream media have been telling you since then, you probably think a lot of water has passed under the bridge, and that everything has changed utterly in the last year.  In fact, as today's new Ipsos-Mori telephone poll demonstrates, hardly anything has changed at all.  Yes and No remain in a statistical tie - meaning that due to the standard margin of error, it's not possible to tell which side is actually in the lead.

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Ipsos-Mori, telephone fieldwork, Don't Knows excluded)

Yes 48% (+1)
No 52% (-1)

The reason why the Yes vote has gone up rather than down is that there was also an Ipsos-Mori poll last May that showed a slight dip in Yes support, albeit within the margin of error.

What I find remarkable is that if Ipsos-Mori are typical, it appears that phone polling remains slightly more Yes-friendly than online polling is.  No online poll since June has had Yes higher than 47%.  I must say that's against my expectations, because there were signs in the run-up to the general election that phone and face-to-face polls were swinging sharply back towards No.  There was one particularly awful Survation phone poll in June that had Yes down to 39%, much worse than anything online polls were suggesting at the time.  Perhaps, as was also the case in the EU referendum, phone polls are more likely to be volatile and to show exaggerated swings in either direction.  Whatever the explanation, we can now for the first time say with confidence that, irrespective of data collection method, the Yes vote recovered from any brief election blip, and is back to roughly where it was in the early spring of 2017.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, I'm going to have to take the media organisation that commissioned the poll to task for misleading people about the results.  STV's online headline, which presumably will be reflected in TV reporting at 6pm, claims that the poll shows that Scots "don't want Indyref 2".  That is quite simply untrue.  The poll actually shows that 42% support a referendum within the next three years (a crucial caveat), 47% oppose a referendum by 2021, 8% "neither support nor oppose" an early referendum, and 3% don't know.  Even if the Don't Knows are stripped out, that means a slender majority of the population do not actively oppose Indyref 2 being held soon.  If Don't Knows and neutrals are removed, the result is as follows -

Do you support or oppose holding another referendum on independence within the next three years?  (Neutrals/Don't Knows excluded)

Support 47%
Oppose 53%

That's extremely close to being a statistical tie, and is strikingly reminiscent of a number of Panelbase polls that have shown a virtual dead heat on similarly-worded questions.

What's even more objectionable about STV's reporting, though, is the unjustified emphasis it's putting on a supplementary question that was asked only to respondents who are in favour of an early indyref.  Those people were asked to make a binary choice between saying that they want a referendum because of Brexit, or that they want a referendum anyway.  STV have used that to split the referendum supporters roughly in half, and to produce a fantasy figure of "only" 22% who supposedly agree with Nicola Sturgeon's stance that a referendum should be held specifically because of Brexit.  Back in the real world, the half of referendum supporters who want an indyref in any circumstances may very well feel that Brexit strengthens the case just the same - but they weren't given any opportunity to say that.  It's also quite possible that some of the respondents who on balance oppose an early referendum nevertheless feel that the arguments in favour are stronger because of Brexit, but they weren't given an opportunity to say that either.  A much more useful question would have been something like "Has Brexit made you more or less supportive of holding an independence referendum within the next three years?" - and it should have been asked to all respondents, not just some.

Scottish voting intentions for next Westminster election:

SNP 39%
Labour 26%
Conservatives 25%
Liberal Democrats 6%
Greens 4%

There have now been eight full-scale Scottish voting intention polls since the general election.  This is the sixth of those to show that the SNP's vote has slightly increased from the 37% recorded on election day.  All eight have shown that the SNP's lead over the Tories has increased, and five have shown that the SNP's lead over Labour has either increased or remained static.

No Holyrood figures from the poll have been published yet, although I would guess STV may release them tomorrow or very soon.  If so, the pattern of recent polls from other firms would suggest that Labour may be performing slightly less well at Holyrood than at Westminster, which could mean they'll still be languishing in third place.

A technical point that will only be of interest to geeks: you may remember that during the indyref campaign we assumed (but didn't know for sure) that Ipsos-Mori were only contacting telephone respondents by landline, which could have meant they were interviewing a disproportionately small 'c' conservative sample.  They now seem to be conceding that point by noting: "Our sample now includes a small proportion of mobile numbers as well as landline."  I've no idea when exactly they made that adjustment, or how much difference it's making to headline results.

#ScotRefBefore2021

I had an exchange with Peter A Bell last night about his "#Referendum2018" hashtag, the frequent use of which he thinks is an important tool to establish support for an early independence referendum.  I told him that I wished I could get behind that hashtag, but I couldn't, because I believe 2018 has already been timed out as a possible date for the vote, and that 2019 or 2020 are now much more probable.  I suggested something like "#ScotRefBefore2021" as a better alternative.  He replied (and this was not a surprise because he's said it many times before) that I might as well opt for #ReferendumNever, because if there isn't a referendum by the autumn of this year, the British state will take some unspecified action to make a vote impossible to hold, or unwinnable.

I think on its own merits the #Referendum2018 thing is harmless enough.  It's pretty obvious that its adherents are heading very shortly for a 'Free by 93' moment, but that's not the end of the world.  However, it becomes more problematical when anyone who doesn't sign up to the 2018 date is told that they effectively oppose an early referendum.  That creates a needless split among people who are essentially on the same side of the debate about timing.  The real debate is between those who think the SNP's mandate for a referendum before the May 2021 election should be honoured, and those who either don't think that or are extremely sceptical.  A unity of purpose among the supporters of a pre-2021 referendum is important, because as we've seen, we'll need to make our case against at least a few well-known and influential people within the SNP who are minded to allow the mandate to expire.  The last thing we need is some artificial division among ourselves over the exact date.  I also worry that Peter is getting himself so boxed in with his insistence on the absolute necessity of a September 2018 vote that he might give up on campaigning for a referendum when he finally accepts his preferred timing isn't going to happen (and that moment can't be far off).  He might even react angrily towards those of us who are continuing to push for an early referendum, which could be rather unhelpful at a time when the prize may be closer than ever.

#ScotRefBefore2021 is just a suggestion, and it may be too unwieldy.  But please, let's come up with a more inclusive hashtag than #Referendum2018 - one that we can all get behind full-bloodedly, and hopefully get trending.