A PRO-independence group launched by LibDem members will not become officially affiliated with the party and will instead launch as a national liberal and republican Yes campaign, the co-founders have revealed.
Yessers Cameron Greer and Jake Stevenson set up Scottish Liberals for Indy last month and were aiming for the group to become an affiliated organisation of the LibDems after they both felt “isolated” within Alex Cole-Hamilton’s party.
But given the stringent requirements and unexpected interest from liberals who were not LibDems, the pair have now decided to go down a non-political route and open the campaign up to those not linked with the party.
It will be rebranded as Scottish Liberals for Independence and will be a progressive group for liberals who support self-determination for Scotland, with LibDem members still welcome.
But Greer and Stevenson have also set out a number of core values members should adhere to, one of which is a belief Scotland should be “free of the undemocratic monarchy”.
The group has also argued that in replacing the monarchy, Scotland should adopt an Irish-style ceremonial presidential system.
Greer – who described himself as once being a “hard-line Unionist" - said they would have had a mountain to climb in order to become an affiliated organisation of the LibDems and he feels going in a fresh direction will still fill a gap in movement.
He told the National: “There were requirements to become an affiliated organisation, such as needing to have 30 members who were LibDems, and we realised we weren’t going to meet those in the near future.
“We’d been trying to decide whether to open it up to members from outside the party and have a more active role within the Yes movement anyway. We’ll still be able to give LibDems a voice within the Yes movement and Liberals too, but we’re just not affiliating to any party now.
“Independence supporters within the LibDems are so sparse, so it would’ve been a very difficult task to get to the point where we could’ve been an affiliated organisation.
“Initially the idea was, we were so isolated within the LibDems because we held pro-indy views and we wanted to bring everyone together so they didn’t feel isolated and possibly make change within the party, but now we’ve realised there’s probably not enough for us to drive that change and it will be more helpful, while saying that LibDems can still join us, to be a community of liberals.
“I think that still fulfills our aim of representing LibDems with pro-independence views but it will also help us have a voice in the Yes movement that is credible and could grow to be a known, national campaign.”
The other values the group has set out include supporting transgender rights and being “strongly opposed to the transphobic and dangerous so-called gender critical movement”, and moving to a Scottish currency as quickly as possible after independence.
Greer and Stevenson have also stated the group will stand for Gaelic and Scots becoming official languages of the country, Scotland becoming a manufacturing nation to boost the economy, a Universal Basic Income, safeguarding LGBTQ+ rights in the constitution, and Scotland rejoining the EU.
Scottish Liberals for Independence will launch across social media platforms on Wednesday and plan to begin accepting donations within the next month.
Greer said there is not currently a national Yes group aimed at liberals which is not affiliated with a political party and hopes it will grow to become well-known within the wider movement.
He added: “I think a lot of Yes campaigns are party-political like YesScot and Green Yes, and there’s not a Yes campaign that is for liberals.
“We’ve had a lot of interest from people saying if we weren’t affiliated with the LibDems they would consider joining. So it made sense to bring all liberals together and as long as you share our values, then you can join.
“We’ve already had such an amazing response and I think we will be able to grow quite big and I hope we will have some influence in the Yes movement.”
