This is from a newsletter from Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, called Reinventing Scotland. It explores the wellbeing economy. Sign up here to receive it each month.
Pre-Christmas I published a poll that made The National’s front page with the headline “Breakthrough 66% support for Yes – Poll finding”.
Commissioned by Believe in Scotland, the Norstat poll found that two thirds of Scottish voters would support Scottish independence, if the case for independence were predicated on a wellbeing economic approach and wellbeing pension. Support for independence instantly increased 12% from 54% to 66% with the same people in the same poll. Notably, older folks, Labour supporters and English born voters all moved to majority Yes support.
Why this is truly a breakthrough
That poll busts the political myth that there isn’t an achievable supermajority for independence. It proves that with the right vision and right message, independence can become the settled will of the Scottish people. It also shows that to achieve independence we may need to be more radical and ambitious in our messaging, simply because that is what the people want.
Independence support has been stuck around 50% for the best part of a decade. Have we been getting the message wrong? Could we add 12%+ to Yes support if we just shared a better vision of what life in an independent Scotland could look like?
READ MORE: Holyrood poll predicts major win for SNP – but fractured parliament
The way we talk about independence right now is really boring and isn’t engaging those vital undecided voters. There is a supermajority for independence, we are just not reaching the undecided and soft No voters with a message on independence that engages and excites.
I have spent years researching what undecided voters might want from an independent Scotland, and what emotional triggers increase independence support, and most importantly what values they would want that nation to have. Values are the key element, the undecided are not interested in policies and political promises. Real change (as 2024 Labour voters now know) is not about swapping one party for another, it’s about reimagining the values of our society.
For people to reject the UK – they need to share a vision
The polls we have commissioned over the last seven years have consistently shown that people reject the values (or lack there-of) of Westminster’s dominant right-wing neo-liberal capitalist system but they relate very closely to the values of a wellbeing economy. There is an open goal right in front of us and we are dribbling in circles refusing to shoot.
Independence supporters all have a personal vision of a better Scotland, they know the values of the nation they are working to create but it’s often a slightly different vision to those campaigning alongside them. We know that our personal visions can’t be realised until Scotland becomes independent and we accept we won’t get everything we want in an independent Scotland, as that’s just how democracy works. The undecided have not yet developed those clear personal visions, they are not party political and often mistrust politicians so are difficult to reach.
There is an old mantra within the indy movement that we need to keep it simple, that we need to just say independence first and vision after, all that matters is that all the powers to govern Scotland are held in Scotland by people voted for by the people who live here. The problem is that many just see that as one set of politicians (they don’t trust) wresting power from another set (they don’t trust) without explaining what’s in it for them – so it’s not working. Keeping it simple is making getting independence complicated.
READ MORE: ‘Find a mirror’: Flynn slates Labour for blaming poor poll on public
It’s about culture and values, not party political policies
It’s true that if we add a thousand policies to the word independence, with every new policy, we add something that people can argue with. However, if you add a set of universally accepted values that differ from those of the broken Westminster system, people can begin to form their own visions of what Scotland might look like and that can lead to that supermajority for independence the poll suggests.
It’s also true that our movement can’t force policies on future governments of an independent Scotland, but we can agree on a set of values – isn’t that what a written constitution is for? “All men are created equal” (USA), “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”, (France) “Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection”, (South Africa). Should our nation’s wellbeing not be protected in such a way?
Not movements, nor politicians, only the people of Scotland can decide if the case of independence is predicated on those almost universally accepted values of societal, economic and environmental wellbeing? That’s why Believe in Scotland proposed that the Scottish Government launch a Citizens’ Convention, facilitating a new national conversation on our nation’s future. A mass engagement exercise connecting with civic Scotland and millions of Scots asking them to share their hopes, dreams and values, to tell us what a better Scotland should look like.
If the people of Scotland come together to co-create a blueprint for a better nation, one that cannot be realised within the restrictive values, economic and political systems of the Union then Scotland will become independent.
How about we base the case for independence around the shared culture, values, hopes and dreams of the people of Scotland and turn those into our manifesto for independence rather than moving powers between politicians? If the people need the benefits of an independent Scotland spelled out to them, let’s get them to spell it out themselves via the Citizens’ Convention. If the people’s vision of an independent Scotland is more radical than the Scottish Government’s, let’s be more radical and win.
Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is the CEO of Business for Scotland, the chief economist at the wellbeing economics think tank Scotianomics, the founder of the Believe in Scotland campaign, and the author of Scotland the Brief.