Slimmed down but fired up, SNP leader reveals 26 November publication date at final autumn conference before referendum
Some have already dubbed it the Scottish Magna Carta, the most important parchment since the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320. It is the SNP's fabled white paper on independence – a document so portentous that already magical powers have been ascribed to it.
On Saturday Alex Salmond announced Tuesday 26 November as its date of publication. Already, it seems, the first minister has fallen under its spell. A good couple of stone of Salmond has disappeared in the past few months as he has eaten with it, drunk with it and slept with it.
The comparisons are immediately apparent. The Arbroath document was an appeal to the pope for Scotland to be recognised as an independent sovereign state free from England's feudal lordship under Edward II. It has resonated through the ages, influencing freedom movements and other countries' struggles for self-determination. America's bill of rights, it is said, was inspired by it.
The nationalists want their white paper to perform a similar job for Scotland's future generations, but first it must chime with this one. Scotland's leader was in rude fettle on Saturday, tilting at the Tories and Labour's quislings in turn, and announcing a couple of crowd-pleasers – the establishment of a fair work commission to guarantee a minimum wage that rises with inflation and reiterating the renationalisation of Royal Mail under his government in an independent Scotland. He also wagged his finger vigorously at each side in the Grangemouth oil refinery dispute.
The next time these delegates meet at an autumn SNP conference, Scotland will either be independent or left looking for the promised scraps a benevolent Westminster government will feed them. Becoming the world's most independent non-independent state, though, doesn't quite have the same heft as becoming its newest one.
The Declaration of Arbroath also asserted Scotland's right to bear arms in defending itself. Perversely, in the midst of all the soaring rhetoric of social justice, it is this right to engage in geopolitical aggro that will be one of the defining issues of the referendum campaign.
As the UK's leading electoral analyst, Professor John Curtice, stated at a fringe meeting the day before, defence and foreign policy are what truly make a nation independent. If the nationalists can outline exactly how their new realm will be defended and how it intends to seek membership of the European Union, they will have travelled a long way in addressing questions which are beginning regularly to crop up on doorsteps.
The professor, with his utterances and espousals, is fast becoming the father of the referendum. The ancient Greeks had Pythia, their Delphic Oracle; the Romans had their Vestal Virgins and, in Live and Let Die, Dr Kananga had his Solitaire. History will record that the rune-master of 21st century Scotland was Professor Curtice.
You and I know him simply as the kenspeckle professor of politics at Strathclyde University and the British media's favourite diviner of opinion polls and voting trends. He is a kindly and sagacious presence on our television screens and, in this febrile pre-referendum climate, has attained mystical powers for Scottish nationalists. Every month they go to him seeking the elixir of eternal independence.
Yesterday the professor appeared wandering among the people at a fringe event hosted by the Law Society of Scotland. Do not always bang on about your vision of a socially just Shangri-La, he seemed to be counselling them. The unaligned who don't attend party conferences are dancing to a different tune, according to the prof: "They want £500 in their own pockets rather than in the pockets of the poor."
You cannot blame the nationalists for making social justice the selling point for an independent Scotland, even more than having a rock'n'roll economy. This weekend it has been a motif running throughout every speech and hung on the lintel of every exhibition stall. It is on this territory that the distance is greatest between them and the Westminster coalition. Even so, this being a conference and there being issues to be discussed among the delegates, a few of us looked forward to a little belligerence in the body of the kirk. But there has been nary even a whiff of any unsanctioned cantankerousness.
"Motion proposed, motion seconded, passed by acclaim." Repeat all weekend. A delegate would have to possess the courage of a cross-dresser in Texas to oppose anything in this atmosphere.
Happily Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy first minister, was on hand to pierce the monotony with an electrifying Friday matinee performance. If Scotland gains its independence it will most probably be this woman, all Karen Millen subdued glamour, who will dispute with David Cameron the terms of separation.
Sturgeon set pulses racing by revealing that she had received a text from a party worker informing her that their hot-coal massage session would have to be cancelled. The message had been sent to the wrong Nicola from Margaret in Rutherglen, a place not unaccustomed to its own hot-coal massages … though these are normally conducted forcefully at a safe distance of 20 feet. Sturgeon conveyed the impression that she could gain enthusiasm for such an esoteric pursuit. Somewhere else in the hall, her husband, Peter Murrell, SNP party manager and a man of rectitude, blinked twice.
Rumours that Sturgeon's boss, Alex Salmond, had chosen to bide at the nearby Gleneagles hotel caused some mild turbulence over the weekend. If true, it could only have been because the first minister was checking out the facilities on behalf of the nation before next year's Ryder Cup. Gleneagles prices start at £300, rising to nearly £2,000, for which a hot-coal massage ought to be the least of the extras. That and one of Perthshire's other luxury products: cigars crafted by hand and rolled on the wet thigh of a Highland coo.
Scottish National party (SNP)Scottish independenceAlex SalmondScottish politicsScotlandKevin McKennatheguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds |
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