Brown demands SNP ‘open the books’ on case for independence
GORDON Brown has said the SNP should submit its case for independence to rigorous parliamentary hearings in both Edinburgh and London to ensure voters are fully informed about the consequences of leaving the UK.
The former prime minister said it would allow MSPS at Holyrood and MPS at Westminster to call experts on currency, finances, tax, borders and the EU “to get the facts on the table”.
He said Nicola Sturgeon had to
“open the books” after new polling found most Scots felt they didn’t know enough about key issues to make an informed choice in a new referendum.
Less than one-third said the SNP and other Yes campaigners had provided enough information to leave them feeling fully informed.
The poll also found two-thirds of Nationalists insisted they knew enough about the key issues to decide despite even the First Minister admitting some had yet to be explained.
Overall, voters ranked preparing for Indyref2 as their eighth-place priority, with clearing the NHS backlog, tackling Covid with vaccines, and protecting and creating jobs the top three.
The First Minister has said she wants Indyref2 by 2024, Covid permitting, and independence in 2026.
Mr Brown’s intervention in the constitutional debate is his second in a week, after he turned his think-tank Our Scottish Future into a pro-uk campaign vehicle.
Last week, he released polling which he said showed around 40 per cent of voters were not decisively committed for either the Union of for independence, although they would lean towards the latter in a binary choice. He said this “middle Scotland” group would decide the constitutional future.
Releasing more polling, Mr Brown said: “Middle Scotland’s support for the SNP and for independence is conditional – and they are now asking the SNP for honesty, for openness and for getting the facts on the table. It is time for the SNP to open the books.
“I believe that it is time for the SNP to agree to hold public hearings on what independence means for everything from the pound to the pension.”
The poll asked people if campaigners for independence “have given enough information about what Scotland would be like if it became independent (eg, on currency, taxation, legal rights, EU membership, the border) for you to make a fully informed choice at a future referendum?”
A total of 58% said “No”, while 30% said “Yes” and 12% said “don’t know”.
Among those who strongly favour independence, 66% said they had enough facts, but 24% said they did not.
Mr Brown added: “When even a quarter of committed independence supporters agree we don’t know enough to make an informed choice on independence, surely the onus is on the SNP to come clean?”
After the SNP’S election win, Ms Sturgeon said Indyref2 was “a matter of when not if”, while SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said there was a “fresh democratic commitment to give the Scottish people the right to choose an independent future”.
A Savanta Comres poll for Scotland
on Sunday yesterday found Indyref2 was the top priority for only one in 11 Scots, with the economy top-rated, and that the country was divided on whether the SNP had even won a mandate for it in the May election.
The pollsters found 40% of Scots said the SNP had a mandate and 40% said they didn’t. Although largely split down party lines, the poll found 13% of SNP voters thought Ms Sturgeon lacked a mandate for another referendum in the current Parliament.
SNP MSP George Adam said his party won the election “by a landslide” and there was an unprecedented
15-seat cross-party majority for independence at Holyrood.
He said: “There will be a postpandemic
independence referendum. As the First Minister has repeated time and time again, it will be at that point the SNP bring forward a detailed and comprehensive prospectus for independence – as it did in 2014 – that addresses all those questions the people of Scotland will rightly want answered.
“Meanwhile, the people of Scotland might also want to know why Gordon Brown continues to campaign to keep Scotland subjected to a disastrous hardbrexit Tory Government and deny us powers to use our human and natural resources to build a better Scotland.”
Around 1,000 Scots were questioned by Stack Data Strategy between May 7 and 8, with responses weighted for age, gender, education, and Holyrood vote.
I believe that it is time for the SNP to agree to hold public hearings on what independence means