What next now for Scotland?

While many people are annoyed and angry at the supreme court ruling. This was a foregone conclusion and was fully expected by both sides. The supreme court ruled on the way the Scotland act was written and the Scottish government were relying on that to force the UK governments hand and to also show not just the people of Scotland, but the people of the world that Scotland is not in any kind of true voluntary partnership.

What does it all mean though for the people of Scotland. It means that there can no longer be any pretence that Scotland is an equal partner in this union and that the UK parliament can do and say whatever they want and force their will upon Scotland on any area that isn't devolved to the Scottish paliament. Ie, on matters that are reserved specifically to the UK parliament, which has now been confirmed includes referendums on independence. A parliament Where our MP's are outnumbered 10 to 1 so can never make any difference and can be simply ignored or jeered at. The UK parliament will never allow an independence referendum while the polls are so high for independence and only did so in 2014 because the polls were so low in favour of it.

While unionists may be gloating at the ruling, they don't realise it has sounded the death knell on the UK. While this may seem hard to believe to many independence supporters, this is exactly what it has done. With this ruling the world can now see the true sham that is the disunited kingdom. With this ruling those who may have been sitting on the fence will no longer have any doubt that we are indeed prisoners in this union. So they will have to now decide to remain so or be free of it.

Since the ruling was announced, thousands have attended rallies across Scotland to denounce it and there were also rallies in 6 major european cities also denouncing the UK for this. Berlin, Rome, Dublin, Paris, Munich and Brussels all saw demonstrations in support of Scotland's independence and our right to have a vote on independence. This is not going to go away for the UK government and will haunt them now.

So where do we go from here? Basically the people that support independence have a year and a half to get as many people onboard with independence as they can. Use every piece of information that you can. Just make sure it is factual though because there is nothing worse than quoting false information and getting caught out. It will get thrown back in your face, so always check first.

There are many good publications out there from Believe in Scotland (BiS) and the Scottish Independence Foundation (SiF) as well as party publications from both the SNP and Alba. There are books on currency by the economist Andy Anderson and videos by Lesley Riddoch and Richard Murphy among others that are too many to mention.

The Scottish government have stated that the 2024 UK elections will now be used as a de facto referendum for independence. However, we cannot afford a rerun of the 2014 referendum where we were mired down with the question about currency. We all know that many no voters believed the lies about having no currency, having no pensions, getting kicked out of the country because Scotland would no longer be in europe, the list goes on and on. While many of these items have been shown now to be false, the question of currency is one that needs to be sorted before any debates start. We cannot have this happen again so the leaders of these parties need to start listening to people outside of their own bubbles, look at alternatives and then make the answers solid and clear so that any sceptical people are in no doubt about the way forward.

We can only work with what we have so we need the leaders to get it right this time. The ruling has given them an opportunity to counteract nearly all of the unionists arguments this time around and they can no longer strut about using the same old lies again. They will no doubt try though.

We now need to work calmly and collectively to form a strategy that not only brings in those that voted no the last time but which will send out a clear message that the YES movement is not going away and that we will get there one way or the other.

The leaders of the current independence parties need to work together. The supporters of those parties, as well as those who are not members of any political party, also need to work together. Just as we did in 2014. We did it then and we can do it again. We just need to put our differences aside and fight for the future of our children. We can squabble over the finer details and about who should lead us once we are independent. Remember, once we have our independence only then can we use all the resources that we have to make Scotland a place where people want to live, not emigrate from. Only then can we pay our workers and our pensioners better wages and pensions. Only then can we vote in, or out, parties or Mp's that are not up to the job.

Finally, the one thing that many people don't seem to consider or maybe realise. Once we have our independence, there will no longer be a need for ANY independence parties. Any parties remaining from that point on will be judged on their policies and ability to fulfil them. If they fail then they can be voted out and someone else put in their place, that is true democracy. This is an argument that can also be used when talking to unionist voters because I honestly belive that it would give them pause to think more seriously about independence. We cannot do that at present of course because we are constrained by how England votes. So lets make a difference, let's work together, side by side, to achieve independence. It's the only way we are going to get there. The rest is up to us now, all of us.