We need to pick a fight
It's all very well to say Take Our Independence! but how will it work? We can't just chant our way to independence. At some point, some people are going to have to do something. At some point, we're going to have to pick a fight with the British State.
But what people? And what something? And what fight?
The people are our MSPs. They are the people to whom we loan the power to govern us. They must restore our independence by picking a fight with the British State. It will be a fight in which the British State will use all their resources to slap us down and put us back in our box. It will deny us our human right to declare our independence. And it will bring the full might of its laws to prevent our liberty.
The fight will coalesce around our parliament's repeal of the 1707 Act of Union with England.
The Act of Union with England ratified the Treaty of Union — the international treaty that forged the union between Scotland and England. Repeal means to revoke or annul, so if we repeal the Act of Union it means that the terms of the treaty no longer apply and we will cease to be in a union with England.
If we cease to be part of a union then our statehood is automatically restored. In other words, we will revert to being an independent state, just like we were before we passed the Act back in 1707.
Sounds simple. And it is. But getting to that point won't be, of course.
We Need a Liberation Movement
The first thing we need is people power. Huge people power. If we ever need to take our case to the United Nations, we need to demonstrate the will of the majority of the Scottish people. We need, in other words, a liberation movement.
Our liberation movement needs to know what it wants. It needs to demand the repeal of the Act of the Union with England to restore our independence and statehood.
But we're ahead with that bit, surely? We already have a movement: we're called Yes. But the Yes movement must stop calling for another independence referendum sanctioned by the British State. Instead, we need to ignore the British State and assert our sovereignty.
We Need Our Sovereign Parliament Back
The usual story that you will hear about the old Scottish parliament of 1707 is that after union with England, it was abolished — that it effectively voted itself out of existence. But that's not true. It's another lie from the British State.
Upon the day of union, the English parliament remained and simply called itself the parliament of Great Britain. The Scottish Parliament simply stopped sitting. It was 'adjourned'. Now 'adjourn' means 'to stop, to break off, with the intention of resuming at some time in the future'.
It wasn't abolished. But the parliament we have today in Holyrood isn't the old Scottish parliament reconvened. The parliament we have today is a creation of the British state, created to allow Scots to run most of their own affairs. But it can't (according to the Scotland Act that created it) just end the union.
So the Holyrood parliament needs to say that it is now the old Scottish parliament reconvened. In parliamentary language, it needs to 'assert its competence over all Scottish affairs and legislation'. Whereupon, the British State will say, no way, you can't do that. We will not allow it. And we'll say, yes we can, and we will, and we just have.
That's the fight.
What We Need
- A huge liberation movement focused on a single goal of repealing the Act of Union with England
- A majority of independence MSPs who agree to pick a fight with Westminster
- Our parliament to assert its competence over all Scottish affairs and legislation
- The Scottish government to introduce a simple bill to repeal the Act of Union with England
Not easy, but doable. For are we or are we not the sons and daughters of Bruce and Wallace?
We need to pick a fight.
#endtheunion