Last Saturday we had the great pleasure of welcoming the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Derek McKay to Donoch to speak to the local Branches. Derek, as usual was an articulate, informed \u00a0and passionate speaker but also has the gravitas which comes with having to make some hard decisions in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As is normal, questions were concentrated on how we win Indyref2\nand especially when it would happen. However for me, one of the key moments\ncame when he referenced the lessons learned about the pensions debate in 2014\nand that the Treasury admission that pensions were guaranteed had come too late\nin the debate. We all know that it was a big issue then and is set to be the\nsame next time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what if we could change that? What if we could make it a\npositive instead?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2014 we were pretty much reacting to the Unionists on issues\nsuch as pensions and currency generally. But this time we have the Steve Webb\nstatement available from the outset. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scottish\nindependence: Pensions ‘secure’ post-Yes, says UK minister<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked\nby Labour MP Ian Davidson at the Scottish affairs committee whether people\ncould be assured that their pensions would be secure if Scotland votes for\nindependence in September’s referendum, Mr Webb answered: “Yes, they have\naccumulated rights into the UK system, under the UK system’s rules.”<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27309215<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I use this\nquote because the question came from Ian Davidson and the source is the bbc,\nneither exactly even neutral far less friendly to our cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What, I\nwonder would be the impact of using this in advance of Indyref2? Would it help\nto neutralise the issue, would it highlight how much the Unionists lied, would\nit, in short, ease the road to YES for some of those who had been scared off\nIndependence in 2014?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nicola, has\nsaid often that we need to win the argument on the \u201cwhy\u201d of Independence before\nwe win the argument on \u201cwhen\u201d, and is quite right to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If one of\nthe \u201cwhy nots\u201d was pensions, can we use this statement on leaflets, billboards\nand in speeches on a regular basis going forward. This will not be the only\nexample of how people were deliberately misled but it makes the point. Let\u2019s\nuse their own statements to ease the conversion process. If you can give a\nwaverer concrete examples of misinformation it makes it easier for them to\nchange. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a\nnumber of initiatives now underway of using billboards to for example highlight\nthe fallacies of brexiteers and The National has combined Brexit and\nIndependence on one. We can use these to drive home the messages now. An\nargument won now is an argument we do not need to have in the future, let\u2019s call\nit the Steve Webb road to Independence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last Saturday we had the great pleasure of welcoming the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Derek McKay to Donoch to speak to the local Branches. Derek, as usual was an articulate, informed \u00a0and passionate speaker but also has the gravitas which comes with having to make some hard decisions in power. As is normal, questions were concentrated on how we win Indyref2 and especially when it would happen. However for me, one of the key moments came when he referenced the lessons learned about the pensions debate in 2014 and that the Treasury admission that pensions were guaranteed had come too late in the debate. WeRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2466"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2473,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions\/2473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}