Time to build a new model

Madam, – I thought Jenny Hjul was sympathetic but less than fair towards former deputy SNP leader Angus Robertson’s organisation Progress Scotland (Courier, February 6).

It is aimed at trying to take a scientific approach to finding out the views of those yet to be convinced of the case for independence.

That is the pensioners, the people born elsewhere in the United Kingdom, Europe and the rest of the world, the people with considerable savings, those who work

in the financial and energy sectors among many others.

Mr Robertson already knows that current polling evidence shows support for autonomy has not changed much since the referendum of 2014.

He wants to find out what these people are thinking, and how policy can change to accommodate them.

That in itself will not be enough. He knows, too, that it is not sufficient simply to shout louder and louder to try to persuade voters. Some serious work has to be done on citizenship, on the currency, on public spending and taxation, on Brexit, on oil, on

transport. A new model of independence has to be created to suit the conditions of the 2020s and 2030s.

It is simply not good enough to rely on the “we wuz robbed” approach taken by so many activists to the vote of more than four years ago.

The new model has to be worked on and put to the voters in the 2021 Holyrood election.

Mr Robertson’s project may go a long way to help develop a programme to give independence supporters a fresh mandate for the next decade.

Bob Taylor.

Shiel Court, Glenrothes.