I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but it looks like I finally might be getting round to it. I'm a writer of fiction, unpublished as yet, but I am also passionately political and working to get myself involved in an issue I have believed in all of my life, the issue of Scottish Independence. I know there are hundreds of blogs around this issue now, but I want to make my own contribution to the debate.
So, with this first post (which I am simply beating out on my laptop without any particular planning, sorry!) I'm just going to sound out one of the aspects of the current debate that I feel needs a little taking to task.
I've been a member of the SNP for the last two years, and have never voted for any other political party. I voted for the Scottish Parliament in our last referendum, and voted yes to tax raising powers too. I've always believed in Scotland being governed from Scotland, I've always believed that Scotland's supposedly unique problems are best solved by Scots.
Now we have an approximate date on which we will decide as a nation what our future is going to be. Now, we can begin dreaming about what our future can be. There have been a million and one demands from the Dependence parties to the SNP about this. They want to know what our army will look like, what our tax system will be, how we will support the NHS and the welfare state, what currency we will use, whether we will remain in the EU (although that's not quite how they put it) and so on, but in my view they have absolutely no right to make these demands of the SNP, and the SNP have no right to respond. Scotland, after a yes vote in 2014, will have to decide these things for herself, by consensus, not by party diktat. I, for one, do not want to have Holyrood run Scotland as a form of Westminster Lite. I want to see a modern, consensus politics emerge from this process of Independence, one where modern information technology gives the people much greater say in the issues to be debated and tackled by the Parliament. One which could quite feasibly allow the Scottish people the ability to engage in constructive debate about government policy and even have a power of veto over. Through the powers of the internet, we could have an effective second chamber consisting of the entire Scottish voting population. Why not? This would be true democracy and would encourage informed participation. Party politics would become less powerful, but I can only see this as a good thing. This could begin with the process of drafting the new Scottish Constitution, allowing the people a powerful seat at the table in rebuilding our nation as a modern one. I certainly believe this process is far too important for us to sit back and allow Party Politics to do it for us! After all, we the people are Scotland, and we are Sovereign!
There should be non party political forums all around the country to allow people to discuss these issues both in the run up to the vote and after it. There should be open debate in an online context too, both before and after. There should be a mechanism afterwards that allows the people to trigger referenda and votes of no confidence in a government. There should be a mechanism that allows the people to bring motions before parliament for debate. There should be a mechanism that allows the people to participate in those debates. Everything else in the way of what Scotland should look like after the referendum should be open for the people to decide, and should not be set out by politicians before the fact! We will have a general election afterwards in which politicians can offer us their own vision for Scotland, we don't need them to dictate this to us before hand. What we need to be discussing now is why it is right for Scotland to govern herself, or why we should continue to allow Scotland to be governed from Westminster.
