Scottish Greens: Scotland’s constitutional future should be in the people’s hands

The call for second independence referendum would need to come from a popular movement not from the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Greens confirmed today.

A majority of independence-supporting MSPs at Holyrood would make another independence referendum “more likely”, the Greens’ co-convener Maggie Chapman said at the party’s manifesto launch, but the force calling for it would have to come from the people.

“We need much more engaged and participative approach to deciding Scotland’s constitutional future, so that remains our position,” she said.

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“We want to see the future of Scotland decided by the Scottish people and though processes like citizens’ initiatives. When there are enough people clamouring for that next referendum then we will give our full support.”

Asked what the sign of that happening would be, she explained: “I don’t think it’s about what happens in Holyrood. It’s not about the 129 that are about to be elected; it’s about the hundreds and thousands of Scottish people demanding something different and demanding something better."

Re-iterating the Greens’ position statement released last year on the anniversary of the independence referendum, she said that if one million Scots came together in a citizens’ initiative to demand another referendum that would be something they’d consider.

“It’s got to come from the people, and I think a majority of independence-supporting parliamentarians possibly makes that more likely, but the force for that has to come from the people not from the 129 people sitting in Holyrood,” she said.

The Greens want to continue developing the work on what an independent Scotland would look like to the point where the offer is “compelling and convincing to a far greater number of people” than what was proposed by the SNP in 2014, her co-convener Patrick Harvie added.

If elected in May the party is committing to create a citizen-led, written Scottish constitution.

“We believe that with a written constitution to bring together the founding documents which currently exist in the various Scotland acts, but to build on that and to crowdsource the principles for a written constitution for Scotland, is something which again will empower people to be in charge of our democracy, not to have democracy something that is done to us all,” said Harvie.