Independence is not a “Left Alternative”

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By Jason Michael

Scottish independence is about Scottish independence. When we allow it to be attached to other political ideologies we alienate potential independentistas, and run the risk of losing another referendum. Independence is for all of us.

There was a while in the Yes movement when the term “left” or “radical alternative” was almost synonymous with at least the public face of the campaign for independence. Those voices advocating such political novelties as “progressive politics” and “new leftism,” thanks to the amplifying effect of social media, gave the impression of being at once the heart and the advance guard of the entire movement, but nothing could have been further from the truth. What we have discovered in the pregnant pause between the last independence referendum and the next is that the backbone of the independence movement is a centrist to left-of-centre Scottish working class, not at all always…