The Scottish National Party (SNP) has sought to reignite its stalled bid for Scottish independence by agreeing a new strategy for seeking breakaway talks with the UK government.
Following a lively 2½-hour debate at its annual conference in Aberdeen on Sunday, SNP delegates passed a motion stating that if it wins a majority of Scotland’s 57 Westminster seats in next year’s UK election, it will consider this a mandate for fresh negotiations with the UK government.
In practice, this means the party will seek talks on a new independence referendum almost a decade after losing the last one, but only as long as it holds on to 29 Westminster seats. The SNP currently has 42 seats, but faces losing a large chunk of them next year to a resurgent Labour Party.
The new policy ends a tortuous seven-month debate within the SNP over independence, ever since Humza Yousaf replaced Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the party and first minister of Scotland. Under her leadership, the SNP had threatened to hold an independence referendum without permission from London. But this avenue was shut down last year by a UK supreme court ruling that the devolved Scottish parliament did not have the power to run a referendum without Westminster’s say so.
The newly-agreed strategy represents a much-needed victory for Mr Yousaf, whose tenure so far has been roiled a party financial scandal during which his mentor, Ms Sturgeon, was arrested in a police investigation over the whereabouts of £660,000 (€761,000) in party donations. She says she is innocent of any wrongdoing.
In an impassioned speech to the conference hall at The Event Complex Aberdeen near the city’s airport, Mr Yousaf insisted the Westminster government is “running scared” of the push for Scottish independence. He admitted, however, that the party has hit a “Westminster roadblock” in its breakaway bid.
He promised that “page one, line one” of the SNP’s manifesto for the UK elections next year will say that “a vote for the SNP is a vote for Scotland to become an independent country”. Mr Yousaf told party members that independence could provide a “real escape” from the UK’s cost-of-living crisis by giving it more control over its own affairs. “Never has independence been more urgent,” he said.
In a series of votes in the hall, delegates rejected two other alternative strategies for dealing with the UK government. These included considering all the votes in next year’s general election to be a “de facto referendum”, with SNP votes viewed as a “yes” for independence. The other alternative was to seek talks on the basis of winning “the most seats” out of the 57, instead of a majority.
SNP members also voted to add the words “Independence for Scotland” to the party’s name and logo on next year’s ballot papers, and to set up a constitutional convention on independence. The SNP also agreed to launch a fresh countrywide independence campaign before the end of the year.
The motion passed also says that if the next UK government refuses to enter talks on a fresh independence vote, then the SNP will use the votes in the next Scottish parliament elections in 2026 as a “de facto” breakaway vote.
Earlier, the SNP passed an emergency motion condemning Hamas’s attack last week on civilians and soldiers in Israel, while calling for international law to be respected by both sides. Mr Yousaf’s wife, Nadia El-Nakla, whose parents are currently stuck in Gaza, gave an emotional speech to the hall.
