Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay will tell the SNP’s annual conference in Aberdeen today that Scotland’s independence movement must reach beyond party politics if it is to build sufficient support for another referendum.
Speaking on Saturday 17 October, Mackay will take part in a panel discussion examining the pathway to independence alongside former SNP MP Tommy Sheppard and Believe in Scotland chief executive Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp.
Her appearance at another party’s conference reflects a wider effort to bring different voices within the independence movement together around their shared constitutional ambitions.
Mackay is expected to argue that support from SNP and Green voters alone will not be enough to establish the sustained majority needed to strengthen demands for another vote.
Instead, she wants a broader coalition capable of reaching people who do not necessarily identify with either party but may be open to considering independence.
The discussion comes at a significant moment for Scotland’s constitutional debate, following the Scottish Parliament election in May and renewed disagreement between Holyrood and Westminster over another referendum.
Mackay will also draw on her own political journey, recalling that she voted against independence in the 2014 referendum before changing her position in the years that followed.
Her comments will place particular emphasis on the consequences of Brexit and Scotland’s departure from the European Union.
Speaking ahead of the discussion, Mackay said:
“I’m delighted to be taking part in this panel and discussing how we can best take the independence movement forward.
“Scotland’s future is too important to be held back by party boundaries, and we need an open, ambitious conversation about how we build the movement that our country needs.
“With the cost of living soaring and our climate breaking down around us, I know that the best people to make decisions about Scotland’s future are the people who live here.
“Independence is bigger than any party.
“SNP supporters and Green supporters alone are not enough to secure a sustained pro-independence majority and to secure the referendum that we need.
“We need to reach beyond our own parties, bring more people with us and build the broadest possible movement for Scotland’s right to choose our own future.”
Mackay will also explain how her experience since the last referendum has influenced her views on Scotland’s constitutional future.
She added:
“I voted No in 2014 because I believed what Labour and others told me about protecting our place in Europe.
“Twelve years on, those promises have been exposed, and Scotland has been taken out of the EU against our will.
“This May, Scotland elected the largest pro-independence majority in the history of our Parliament.
“We must build on that mandate, bring people from across the independence movement together and turn that support into the chance to take our own path.”
Although the Scottish Greens and SNP differ on a range of policies, both support Scottish independence and another referendum on the country’s constitutional future.
The UK Government continues to oppose a further referendum, leaving the question of how to secure one unresolved.
For Mackay, today’s discussion is an opportunity to make the case that the independence movement’s next stage must involve more than its established political supporters.
Her message is that building wider public support, rather than relying on existing party loyalties, will be central to the movement’s future.
