Why we’re trying to finish the indy preparation work

Today Common Weal has launched a fundraiser for a new project. Over the course of the next 12 months we are going to try and develop a comprehensive and effective prospectus for how Scotland would become an independent nation after a successful referendum vote.

This is an issue we have done a lot of work on in the past and have written about often. There is a very important reason why we keep returning to this issue – and it is because we keep looking at the available evidence and it keeps telling us the same thing. There is a segment of Scottish public opinion which is susceptible to changing its position in favour of independence, but its support is conditional.

This group makes up (probably) between 10 and 20 per cent of the total electorate and is not demographically consistent. Some of its members rarely vote in elections; others are more typical swing voters, others again are willing to look beyond party affiliation. What connects these voters is two key factors.

First, they do not have any inherent hostility to the idea of Scotland becoming independent. They see themselves as Scottish and would like to believe their country was at least theoretically capable of being its own nation state. But second, they need to have the confidence that that nation state would be created effectively and that it would be viable in the near term.

This is the key; few people don't accept that Scotland could eventually be an independent country but this group is not persuaded that the cost of getting there is justified, either because they do not think we have the capability of building a new nation state quickly and effectively or because they haven't been presented information to allay their fears of the impacts of the transition period - or both.

Inevitably, these fears are not necessarily expressed in these terms. Other proxy terms often stand in for this sentiment, such as 'they'll make a mess of it' or 'I can't afford five years of higher mortgages while we get our act together' or similar. But Common Weal has had access to more detailed research and it suggests these all lead back to concern over lack of preparedness.

In fact there is fairly strong evidence that this is what proved to be one of the main barriers to further support for independence in the first referendum. And it is important to note that these concerns are not unjustified. Common Weal has done a lot of work in this field and it shows that the official prospectus for independence (or as close as there is to one) really does still have holes in it.

We started to do this work in 2017 with the White Paper Project. Over a year and a half we worked with more than 40 leading experts to put together an examination of all the infrastructure, systems agreements you need to operate as an independent country from day one. We set out what is the modern standard for developed nations in each case, where Scotland stood and how we might close that gap. It was published as How To Start A New Country.

That was published nearly eight years ago and work hasn't moved on much further since. We still lack specific detail on how the process of building a post-Yes Scotland would work or what 'steady state' would look like on day one. The official material published by the Scottish Government is heavy on rhetoric but light on detail, and that is precisely what sceptical voters are so suspicious about.

Common Weal has considered taking this work further forward for a while, but it is substantial. We have created a matrix of all the issues we think need to be considered and resolved and there are more than 80 categories. That means that if we are to complete this work in a year, we have to tackle two big issues a week. That is a lot of work.

That is why we are trying to expand our capacity so we can complete it. We need more staff time to be able to get this done. We have received funding from the Scottish Independence Foundation but we’re seeking another £10k to help us expand our staff capacity a bit for a year so we can get this done.

We continue to believe that this is one of the biggest contributions to addressing the concerns of our key target audience and we believe we are best placed to do that work. While it is a big ask, we are confident we can complete this in the timescales.

So if you are able to donate, please do. Everything helps. It is time to get this work complete so we are better prepared to grasp any opportunity for independence that opens up.