Independence is dead as a political issue in Scotland for the next few years. This much should not be in any dispute. A Labour government with a crushing majority sits firmly in Westminster with absolutely no intentions of granting a second referendum, and the SNP has loudly and clearly abandoned any other strategy.
This fact is understandably painful and difficult to come to terms with for anyone who’s devoted the last 13 years to pursuing that cause and now isn’t quite sure what to do with theirself. But for those who still aren’t ready to face up to the unpleasant reality, there’s always the comforting world of fantasy.
Because there’s always money to be made from snake oil and pie in the sky.
Believe In Scotland’s new proposal, released with great fanfare (well, a small piece in The National) this week, for a “Scottish Citizens’ Convention” is incoherent guff even as a basic principle. It frames itself explicitly as an “independence delivery strategy”:
It confidently predicts that the mere existence of the Convention will increase support for independence to between 62% and 65%. (A leap of almost 20 points, which is more than was achieved in the entire 2011-2014 Yes campaign.)
And it has determined the Convention’s eventual conclusions in advance, allowing for “zero possibility” of any other outcome:
Yet at the same time the proposal document inexplicably tries to pretend that the venture will somehow be participated in willingly by the half of Scotland that currently DOESN’T want the country to be independent.
Um… why?
Put yourself in the shoes of a Unionist voter receiving an invitation to take part in this programme. You’ll be asked to give up your time for a YEAR – exactly how much time and how often is not specified – for something that you’ve been quite expressly told is designed to deliver independence, will increase support for independence merely by dint of existing, and will result in a renewed demand for independence.
Why in the world would you do that? Would YOU, readers, engage with such a thing if it had been organised by Scotland In Union with the stated purpose of increasing support for Scotland’s membership of the UK? Of course you bloody wouldn’t. So why would Unionists lend a hand to Believe In Scotland?
It is, then, a plan of quite jaw-droppingly cynical dishonesty from its most fundamental conception. This will be a echo-chamber talking-shop of people already committed to independence, which will produce a report recommending independence.
Gosh, imagine everyone’s surprise. Picture this stunning development on all the front pages: BREAKING: INDEPENDENCE SUPPORTERS WANT INDEPENDENCE.
We could spend several thousand words pulling apart all the other absurd nonsense in the document, pointing out staggeringly obvious flaws like pinning the whole plan on support for the SNP, which is currently electoral toxic waste leaking out of the sewers of a burning nuclear power station. But why bother when even the most basic building blocks are made out of poorly-set jelly?
Wings is, and all Yes supporters should be, absolutely grossly insulted by this mind-bogglingly cretinous idea. It isn’t just stupid, it’s offensively, galactically stupid.
It’s laughing openly in your face. It’s pissing in your pocket and telling you it’s raining. It’s the dust from the dregs of the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, a hopefully-last desperate attempt at grifting from a “grassroots” organisation that struggled to put 1500 people on the streets on a nice sunny day this April even when led by the First Minister and with the full backing of the Scottish Government.
Because they’re not complete imbeciles, BiS has anticipated this reaction:
But sometimes doing nothing is an infinitely better plan. The Scottish people have been harangued about independence for a decade and a half. They’re sick of it and they know that for now at least it’s going nowhere. If we want to show voters some respect – and, y’know, that’s generally a good plan – by far the best thing we could do at this particular moment is simply shut the hell up.
And if that’s too much, the second-best thing is to at least not to treat them like the sort of drooling halfwitted dolts who’d swallow slack-jawed chump-drivel like this.
