SCOTTISH politics continues to be dominated by the independence debate. Whilst First Minister Nicola Sturgeon awaits a formal response from Prime Minister Boris Johnson to her request for a Section 30 referendum, voices from the left of Scottish politics are being heard. A mixed set of views, it must be said.

Graham Smith, outgoing general secretary of the STUC, says the labour movement should support the call for Indyref2 and start to think about what an independent Scotland would mean. Neil Findlay and Monica Lennon, MSPs from different wings of the Labour Party, say there is a democratic mandate for the First Minister’s demand. Findlay claims it should wait till after the final outcome of Brexit. Meanwhile Lennon has called for a Scottish Labour Party separate from the British party.

Leader of, so far not-separate, Scottish Labour, Richard Leonard, writing in the Scotsman, continues to focus on the dangers of independence itself saying that a “hard-right Brexit” with a majority Tory government is “not a reason to accept austerity in a separate Scotland as the least worst option.”

Aiden O’Rourke, of the Young Communist League, warns in the Morning Star that Holyrood could turn into another Westminster and invokes the message of James Connolly who warned that Irish independence alone would not free the Irish workers and peasants from English capitalism.

Meanwhile SNP MP Kenny Macaskill, in the Scottish Left Review, says Indyref2 is very unlikely this year and a delay might not be a bad thing to give the SNP time to answer some of the questions left over from 2014, such as currency.

Whilst some people on the left seem to wish the issue would just go away it is important that the debate takes place and within the trade unions the discussion should not be avoided, or worse, suppressed.

Trade unions are firstly upholders of democracy and so Smith is correct to speak out and support the right of the Scottish Parliament to determine if, and when, a referendum should be held. He is also right to point out that a majority for a referendum in the Scots Parliament and an overwhelming victory for the SNP in the general election gives Sturgeon a clear mandate to call for one.

In 2014 most trade unions in Scotland took a neutral position with the STUC, and my own union Unison, positively engaging in the debate about what kind of Scotland, a Just and Fairer Scotland, we wanted to see without declaring support for Yes or No. Such a sitting-on-the-fence position may not be appropriate this time. In 2014 on one side of the fence was the excitement but also the risks and dangers of independence. On the other side was a Tory austerity Britain with the possibility of a Labour government that could introduce policies that could take us towards a just and fairer Britain.

Leonard, as he did in 2014, has highlighted the problems with the SNP’s policies for an independent Scotland, referring to their Growth Commission proposals and the real risk of “turbo-charged austerity” these represent.

However for trade unions, whose aims are to secure the best environment for their members within a democratic society, these fears for independence are very similar to what they have experienced over the past 10 years and what the prospect of a Johnson hard-Brexit offers for the next.

Now that the prospect of a British Labour victory is a long way off, sitting on the fence in Indyref2 would mean looking at austerity on both sides. Trade unions and their members are entitled to ask if there are alternatives to these two austerity-based futures.

Support for independence amongst working-class communities, young people and trade union members in 2014 was based on ideas promoted by the STUC and some progressive unions for a Just and Fairer Scotland. Independence was believed to be a way to achieve this. This was expressed by the Radical Independence Campaign and received an echo amongst many in the trade unions.

The challenge for trade unions is to consider whether independence could offer an escape from a Tory hard-right neoliberal, anti-trade union, future. The warnings against an SNP Growth Commission version of independence are not to be ignored.

However what prospect of an independence based on socialist and progressive policies? Is that possible? Is that something that union members now need to consider? And if it is possible does that mean that, as an alternative to British or Growth Commission austerity, we should now seriously be debating how such a left, socialist and trade union-friendly independence movement could be developed?

It is now time for the trade union movement to develop a discussion and seek to influence the independence movement in a search for an alternative to austerity, whether that is a union jack or saltire austerity. A socialist government at a Britain-wide level is off the agenda, possibly for a very long time, so we need to consider whether it is possible on a Scottish basis.

Such a discussion would not be about which flag we want to fly but how best to advance the interests of working people, to really tackle poverty, to eradicate foodbanks, to protect our health and public services. The anti-independence argument, that is, staying in Britain that Johnson is going to create, does not give much to encourage us on these “class issues” so perhaps we need to take our ideas of what a just Scotland, a fairer Scotland, would look like and work out whether it is possible to achieve these in a Scotland that is not part of the UK.

The response to this from some will be no, and the alternative they offer is to continue to struggle for some future left-Labour Party overcoming everything that Corbyn was unable to, at some point in the future. This was their position in 2014. In 2020, without committing to supporting a Yes vote in a future referendum, there is a responsibility for us to explore an alternative that was and is supported by a majority of young working-class people and see if such a vision can become concrete.

Stephen Smellie is Unison Scotland deputy convenor.