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‘We’ve been marched up the hill too many times’: Independence activists from Aberdeen to Skye speak out 10 years from No vote

SNP leader John Swinney has to rebuild confidence at the party conference starting today.

Activists from Skye and Lochalsh on a 'day of action' for the Yes campaign. Image: Philip Taylor.
Activists from Skye and Lochalsh on a 'day of action' for the Yes campaign. Image: Philip Taylor.

SNP leader John Swinney joins activists at the party’s conference in Edinburgh today with the tough task of rebuilding confidence after a crushing general election defeat.

The national gathering of party members comes as it approaches a decade since the referendum on September 18 which saw Scotland vote to stay in the UK.

With the SNP bruised by the election, and no new referendum date in sight, we spoke to Yes groups across the north-east, Highlands and islands to test the mood.


‘We need to rebuild enthusiasm’

Alan Petrie, convener of Aberdeen Independence Movement, campaigned during the 2014 vote but said it’s “almost impossible to keep up that energy for 10 years”.

“We need to rebuild the enthusiasm again. There’s a feeling that we have been marched up the hill a bit too many times”, he said.

“We don’t want to be marched back down again.”

Picture from an independence march in Aberdeen in August 2019. Image: Chris Sumner/DC Thomson.

He said the last general election “caught everyone on the hop” and the SNP “didn’t have a clear stance” on independence.

Mr Petrie added: “They’ve got 18 months to develop a strategy and it needs to be done before the Holyrood election in 2026.

“The strategies they did have are not working. Constantly asking for a referendum…It’s demoralising.

“The UK Government doesn’t have any reason to say yes at the moment at all.”

‘Tokenistic gestures’

Meanwhile, Yes Skye & Lochalsh coordinator Carole Inglis hopes the conference will recognise the “continued campaigning” by Yes groups over the last decade.

Since lockdown, she says activists have found new ways of communicating and members have joined together across a number of national organisations.

But Ms Inglis wants to see more than just symbolic gestures from the SNP.

“We are beginning to work together, for the common goal of independence, and we expect the SNP to reflect on this and change their tokenistic gestures towards the grassroots movement”, she said.

Yes Skye & Lochalsh coordinator Carole Inglis. Image: Philip Taylor.

On the path ahead, she added: “There is a definite feeling amongst the grassroots that a referendum is not the way forward, and Scotland cannot afford to wait until Westminster gives its ‘permission’.

“I think there is an energy developing that a plebiscite election in 2026 is a more tangible route, as the list vote for parties who have independence upfront in their manifestos is a measurable demonstration of support.”

SNP has ‘lost political mojo’

The critical stance towards the SNP – the country’s largest pro-independence party – is clear among those Yes activists we spoke to.

But Peter Smith, from the Loch Yes campaign group, said the “temporary travails of one political party does not mean independence is ‘off the table'”.

And that activists are in “no way diminished” in their quest for self-determination for Scotland.

John Swinney at the SNP’s conference in Aberdeen in 2022. Image: Wullie Marr/DC Thomson.

Iain Bruce from Yes Nairn described the SNP as “accident prone” and said the party has “lost its political mojo”.

He says those in the independence movement all agree the cost of living crisis, the economy and the NHS are “current preoccupations”.

But said the movement remains “equally committed to the idea that independence from the failing state that is the UK, whoever is in power, is the real answer to improving our citizens’ lot and the future for our kids”.

The SNP was approached for comment.

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