SNP must woo voters to turn our indy hopes into reality
As we approach next year's election, polls suggest the notion has never been more popular – and yet the formation of a Unionist administration at Holyrood is more on the cards than at any time since 2007.
We need serious action to prevent this outcome. And we don't have long. On Saturday, we made a start.
The SNP's National Council meeting in Perth rightly was not open to the press or public. It provided a safe space for party activists to have a candid debate with its leadership, away from our opponents and detractors.
READ MORE: US enters war with Iran after Donald Trump orders bombing of key nuclear sites
I for one feel heartened at the tenor and content of the discussion. We haven't yet got the answers, but at least we are now asking the right questions. Over the months ahead, party members need to devise and unite behind a strategy to win a majority at next May's Scottish Parliament election.
First things first. Political independence for our country will be central to the party's message. How could it be anything other than that? There is no point to the SNP if the party does not represent the ambition of self-government, now shared by a majority of our citizens.
Frustration and fatigue have eaten away at our capacity in this movement. It has made us question the motivation and integrity of comrades. Repeated comments on social media – and indeed in the columns of this paper – suggest that the SNP has deprioritised independence.
The party's leader is accused of shying away from the arguments. But no-one present in Perth on Saturday could have left with that impression.
I saw a party leader there who not only demonstrated commitment to the political objective of an independent Scotland but who also offered a serious strategic assessment of how to achieve it.
The internal chaos that consumed the party a year ago has dissipated; the haemorrhaging of support stemmed; the party in government stabilised. These were not ends in themselves but necessary steps to regroup and redeploy in the fight for our country's future.
Now we need to get back to business: being the political leadership of the movement for national autonomy. It's time for phase two.
The SNP need to convince people who want Scotland to be independent to vote for a party that will fight for their right to make that choice. That means confronting the yawning gap between support for independence and for the party.
Awareness is growing that this needs a sophisticated approach – different people don't vote SNP for different reasons. So, we need to talk to them differently. Being performative isn't good enough.
Just repeating the word doesn't make it happen.
Two major groups of people matter in this. Firstly, those who tell pollsters that they think Scotland should be independent, but intend to vote for parties that are against it. It is not that their support for independence is weak, more that they don't see how independence is relevant right now. They are worried about paying this month's bills, about getting a health appointment, about their kids going to war.
So, we need to talk about the why of independence. We need to make it relevant. We need to show how making our own decisions means we can make better ones.
Our manifesto must spell out how control of our own resources affects key aspects of people's lives. It is about getting power for a purpose.
The second group are those who want Scotland to be independent but do not vote. Some have never voted; some have given up because they no longer see how voting will achieve what they want. They have been ground down by the intransigence and denial of the UK state.
For this group we need to talk about the how of independence. We need to make next year's vote an assertion of the Claim of Right.
People have been denied the opportunity to consider this country's constitutional future not by the SNP government but by serial UK administrations, whose actions have been underwritten by the UK Supreme Court.
This is unacceptable. It must change. And next May we need to invite people to demand that change.
If they do, then we need explain our plans for executing their mandate. No more pretending that it will just happen because we vote for it. It will require a massive campaign to mobilise the political will of the people behind their government.
This will be the time for civic conventions, for mass public information, for cross-party alliances, for legal and diplomatic effort at home and abroad. To do any of this we need to win the election.
That is why the SNP must ask all those who want Scotland to be independent to give, indeed ,or lend, the party their vote. We need to do that with humility and without illusion.
And those independence supporters who are thinking of not voting need to think again.
Not because one vote changes the world, but because it creates the conditions where their hopes are more likely to become reality.
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