Much had changed in the twelve years between the publication of the SNP's draft Constitution in 2002 and the holding of the referendum on independence in 2014. The SNP had moved from opposition, through a period of minority government, to majority government status. The party had recast itself as a party of government and begun to accustom itself to power.

These developments had implications for the development of the party's constitutional policy, such that by the time of the referendum, the SNP's 2002 draft Constitution was little more than a historical document. Although the traces and influences of the 2002 text can clearly be seen in the later proposals of the Scottish government, it was superseded by the 2013 White Paper and the 2014 draft interim constitution. This chapter, accordingly, examines the constitutional policy of the SNP and the wider pro-independence movement during the years leading up to the independence referendum. It focuses on a comparison between the 2002 text and the text of the draft interim Constitution published by the Scottish government in June 2014.

The SNP's Constitutional Policy in Government

From the publication of A Constitution for a Free Scotland in 2002 until the SNP's coming to power in a minority government after the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections, constitutional policy remained far in the background. The party was more preoccupied with the internal structural reforms that would enable it to present itself as a credible, electioneering machine.

Constitutional policy stagnated and even appeared to regress. The constitutional debate in Scotland focused almost exclusively on the ‘status question’ (the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom) to the exclusion of the wider ‘constitutional question’ (the constitutional arrangements for a Scottish state). The so-called ‘National Conversation’, a rather half-hearted consultation exercise undertaken by the Scottish government during the period when the SNP governed with a minority in the Scottish Parliament, framed the debate solely in terms of a sliding scale of Scottish autonomy, ranging from the devolved status quo, through implementation of the Calman Commission proposals and some sort of ‘devolution max’, to independence. Little thought was given to the constitutional form that the future Scottish state might take in the event of achieving such independence.