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Not long ago we again heard Martin Luther King spell out his dream. It was no utopian fantasy. He knew only too well that the road ahead was no easy way. He knew that his struggle demanded both a clear purpose and a real way of getting there.
We have a year – certainly one of the most historic in our nation’s story – to spell out our dream, and to insist that both sides in the debate tell us clearly how they would get us there. I intend over the next crucial year to do all I can to help the people of Scotland say ‘We have a dream – for the future of our nation’ and to monitor carefully what both sides are promising to make it real.
Every Scot has now to use the next year to ask and answer three key questions: What is my dream? What kind of Scotland do I want to see? Which side offers the best way to begin to create it? Here are my own hesitant first tries at answers – to be developed and improved:
I believe in a Scotland with the power to shape its own future and make all decisions that affect its people. A Scotland that, instead of ‘devolution’ (however max or plus it be), has a constitution guaranteeing the sovereignty of its people. It was Enoch Powell who reminded us that: ‘Power devolved is power retained’. I therefore want to challenge both sides to tell us how they would promise real change if they win. And they need to have firm policies well before the referendum next year, so that every voter is crystal clear what they are voting for – not just against.
I believe in a Scotland which is a modern democracy, open and participative, free from what the Constitutional Convention called ‘the rituals of Westminster’. A Scotland of human rights, better governance and social justice. I believe in a Scotland that can reshape its relationships, with or within the UK, within the EU, and beyond. Both sides must be challenged to offer us a way of being ‘Together’ that does not impose on Scotland decisions made in London – one glaring example could be any future UK decision to leave the EU. I would like to call it ‘Together – Come of Age’.
This is just a start. On the question of which side offers us the most convincing answers, I remain for now uncomfortably on the fence. So let the phony war be over. No more negative point-scoring. Tell us what your dream is, and tell us, both Yes and No campaigns, what you promise us to do positively to ensure that this unique chance for change is not squandered, leaving us just where we were. Convince us.
Kenyon Wright chaired the Scottish Constitutional Convention which laid the groundwork for the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999