Yes Scotland and the SNP both try to appeal to the majority of Scottish voters. This makes sense — if you adopt a minority position (for instance with regard to the monarchy, NATO or the currency of Scotland), you’re likely to scare away more potential Yes voters than you gain.
On the other hand, it’s often the people who want to change the status quo that have the most to gain by voting Yes. As some people have been saying recently, if the SNP don’t want to change anything after independence, why vote Yes?
The likelihood of Westminster abolishing the monarchy, leaving NATO or joining the euro must be very slim indeed. On the other hand, all of these policies are favoured by a large minority of Scots, so if you’re an activist who strongly favours one of them, the chances of achieving your goal is much greater in an independent Scotland.
In other words, we can’t expect neither Yes Scotland nor the SNP to be campaigning in favour of changing these policies from day one after independence, which is of course why the SNP leadership is trying to get rid of the party’s traditional anti-NATO stance.
What we need are plenty of smaller single-purpose campaign organisations to advocate a Yes as a major stepping stone towards their goal. For instance, an organisation such as Republic Scotland would do well to realise that its goal is much more achievable by promoting independence, and it should campaign vigorously for a Yes.
The consequence of this is that many SNP activists would do well to spend less time in the SNP over the next couple of years and instead concentrate their efforts on various grassroots movements, to make sure as many as possible join the wider Yes campaign.
