Research group laid out best way for Scots to take back our nation

The National

25-05-2025

In particular, I'm wondering how I can do justice to the Saturday afternoon session in the main hall under the title Decolonisation & Self-Determination. This was an event that future historians will refer to as a pivotal moment in the campaign to restore Scotland's independence. That is how important it was.
The speakers for this session were Sara Salyers (Salvo), Professor Alf Baird (Salvo), Craig Murray (Salvo/Liberation ambassador), Sharof Azizov (executive director of JPTi,), and Professor Robert Black QC (professor emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh). The topic was the Salvo/Liberation initiative to have Scotland included on the UN's list of non-self-governing territories (NSGT). That is to say, territories recognised as having been annexed and now slated for decolonisation.
Regular readers will be aware that I have expressed some reservations about the Salvo/Liberation initiative. There were, for example, concerns about the cost of failure. Should the initiative not result in Scotland joining the existing 17 NSGTs, this could be interpreted as validation of the Union. which would seriously undermine the 'case for independence' and deprive the independence campaign of a vital line of argument.
When I held this view, I put the Salvo/Liberation initiative's chances of success at no more than 50%. Having attended the SSRG conference session on Decolonisation & Self-Determination, I now put the chances of success at 80% or higher. One cannot say better than that due to the vagaries of international relations. But the 'risk assessment' has been turned around by what I heard at that conference session.
Not to diminish the contribution from the other speakers in any way, I suspect they themselves would allow that the most significant contribution was Professor Black's momentous legal opinion on Scotland's status within the Union. Having said that, I would urge everyone to listen to the entire session. I guarantee you will find doing so well worth two hours of your time.
For the moment, this quote from an article in The National will give a flavour of Professor Black's perspective: 'The evidence, the facts on the ground support no judgement other than that Scotland ceased to exist as a state in international law and was absorbed into a still-extant England, cosmetically renamed 'Great Britain'. Scotland's legal status today, more than three centuries later, is therefore not that of a partner in a union – unequal, perhaps, but a union nevertheless – but is that of territory absorbed into a larger country. A territory with only limited self-government and with its resources exploitable and exploited by the larger country for its own benefit and purposes.'
This together with the contributions from Sharof Azizov was enough to persuade me that the case for Scotland being recognised as a colony was unassailable, leaving only the factor of internationalised relations as a potential fly in the ointment.
A couple of concerns remain. The first is the question of timescale. Nobody can put a timescale on the procedure for applying to have Scotland listed as an NSGT. If we regard Scotland's predicament as urgent – as we must – then we have to recognise the possibility (probability?) that a response from the UN may not come soon enough to be a factor in the campaign for the 2026 Scottish Parliament election.
Recognising the urgency of the situation, we are obliged to treat every democratic event as if it were our last chance to get Scotland's cause out of the mire in which it has been stuck for a decade. We cannot rely on the UN's support in this effort. We can only hope their response to the Salvo/Liberation initiative is timely.
The other remaining concern relates to the reality of what success for the Salvo/Liberation initiative will mean for Scotland's cause.
The following from The Scotland Channel's Facebook page illustrates the point: 'Moves to have Scotland decolonised by the United Nations have moved up a gear with meetings set to take place with diplomats from more than 30 countries.'
Scotland will not be decolonised by the United Nations. Only the people of Scotland can decolonise our nation. There seems a strong possibility now that the UN will support our efforts to liberate Scotland. But the effort must be made by us!
What that unfortunate quote from The Scotland Channel illustrates is the tendency to regard success for the Salvo/Liberation initiative as a complete solution. Spend any time on social media and you will find this notion to be common. At the SSRG conference, I was graciously permitted a couple of interventions in which I sought to stress the importance of ensuring people are aware that having the UN onside is of little use if there is not an internal political and parliamentary process. The UN will provide support. But first, there must be something to which that support can apply.
One may think of this UN support as them clearing the road ahead. We still require a vehicle to travel that road. And that vehicle must be built by us, the people of Scotland. We must ensure that there is a political/parliamentary process in place regardless of the outcome of the Salvo/Liberation initiative. But it would be tragic if the UN recognised Scotland's status as annexed territory of England-as-Britain and nothing came of it because there was no internal political/parliamentary process to exploit this new advantage.
This is where the Manifesto for Independence comes in. It sets out the political/parliamentary process that is required. No other such process has been identified. The #ScottishUDI process works even without UN support such as will be secured if/when the Salvo/Liberation initiative succeeds. With that UN support, it all becomes much easier and the restoration of independence is guaranteed.
I said earlier that it was up to us, the people of Scotland, to build the vehicle that will travel the route cleared for us by the UN. We do that by combining in sufficient numbers that we can force the political parties to be the engine of that vehicle. They have an essential role as it is the political parties which should connect the people to the effective political power of the parliament. As things stand, they are failing abysmally to perform this function. We must join together so that our combined strength becomes an irresistible force compelling the politicians to do the things we elect them to do.
The Manifesto for Independence Petition is the means of demonstrating our unity of purpose and instrument we wield in order to secure from the nominally pro-independence parties a cast-iron commitment to parliamentary action for the purpose of decolonising our nation.
By means of the petition, we take back our government and direct it to take back our parliament. Then, with or without the aid of the UN, we take back our nation. Visit the Manifesto for Independence Petition page now! Sign the petition and then share it as widely and as often as possible.
Do not squander this opportunity! There may not be another!
Peter A Bell
via email