We should be sceptical about claims that independence would automatically lead to the creation of a social democratic society.
Without fostering any illusions in the ability of individual states to remove themselves from the pressures of the capitalist world economy, the ability to hold elected politicians directly to account is preferable to the current endless displacement of responsibility. In particular, it would make it more difficult for the SNP to blame Westminster for the decisions that it has taken with regard to imposing the austerity programme. One difficulty is that the entire issue of independence still feels slightly alien to most socialists and trade unionists, as if it were an irrelevance or distraction from our proper role of fighting austerity and expressing solidarity with the oppressed. Socialists may wish they were not faced with this issue, which many clearly regard as a diversion from more serious matters. But we are rarely granted the luxury of deciding the terrain upon which we have to fight. To evade the issue by affecting abstention between independence and the status quo is, in effect, to opt for the latter while pretending to be hostile to both.