Stop feeding London! – SNP call on UK Government “to prepare for loss of Scottish subsidies”

The Scottish National Party (SNP) have passed a pro-independence motion telling the UK Government to begin to prepare for Scotland’s exit from the Union.

The motion, which was tabled by the Glasgow Southside constituency association, passed unanimously at the SNP conference after a bid to withdraw it over being “incomplete” failed.

The independence motion – the shortest on the 2026 conference agenda – read: “With the achievement of a self-governing and independent country coming ever closer this Conference commends and recommends to the UK Government that it commences preparations for the time to come when it may no longer be able to rely upon continuing subsidies from Scotland.”

Arguing for it, Orr said: “This resolution is not about confrontation, nor is it about presuming the outcome of democratic decisions. Instead, it's about prudent planning.

“The reality is not that Scotland cannot afford to be independent, it is that the UK Government cannot afford to be unprepared.”

He went on: “The idea projected is that Scotland is a ‘subsidy junkie’, a passenger in a Union that generously keeps our lights on. When Scotland achieves independence, that pillar will be removed.

“A responsible government prepares for change. When a business loses a major partner, it diversifies. When a landlord loses a tenant, they adjust their budget.

“Governments routinely plan for potential futures, they plan for economic shocks, for demographic changes, and for international developments.

“Preparing for a possible constitutional change is simply another example of responsible governance.”

“We should encourage the UK Government to prepare for the time when it may no longer continue to receive subsidies from Scotland

SNP delegate Gareth Morgan argued that it did not go far enough.

“It does have some pretty serious omissions,” he said. “Yes, of course, we should encourage the UK Government to prepare for the time when it may no longer continue to receive subsidies from Scotland… But there's so much more in addition to that that needs to be brought into sensible planning for independence.

“It’s not just the loss of Scottish subsidies. They need to prepare for a Scotland with a separate foreign policy, a separate immigration policy, separation of the HMRC, Department of Work and Pensions, loads of other existing structures they haven't thought about at all.”

Morgan finished by arguing that the UK Government needed to prepare not just for an independent Scotland, but for it to rejoin the EU, and the consequences of having a full EU member on the UK's northern border.

The passed motion echoes what former Green MP Caroline Lucas told a crowd in Glasgow earlier in the week, when she argued that conversations about the constitution were not happening in England – and could lead to Brexit-style chaos without forward planning.

“In the other nations of the UK there are these vibrant debates going on about the constitutional future of Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland,” Lucas said. “The one place where that conversation isn't happening at all is in England, because in England we just bumble along thinking that the future will be the same as the past.”

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