“Westminster politics are democratically bankrupt, not only due to an absurd Victorian voting system," explains Stuart Rodger, who supports Scottish Independence, but because "the three political parties push the same discredited ideology of neoliberalism."

"A hugely disproportionate number of Members of Parliament come from very privileged backgrounds, [so] they no longer serve the interests of ordinary people. This is the central reason why I am campaigning so passionately for Independence," he said. "We are witnessing the corporate demolition of democracy in Westminster – and if 5 million people can escape that, why shouldn't they?”

Rodger is a member of the Radical Independence Campaign which is calling for a Yes vote on Scotland’s independence referendum, to be held Sept. 18. Matching his enthusiasm is a burgeoning movement of advocates for democratic transformation seeking to rebuild a society around principles of equality, ecological sustainability, social justice and participatory democracy.

The movement sprang in part as a reaction to the City of London's dominant impact on policies that have drastically increased poverty across the U.K., decimated public services, enriched corporate bosses and pushed destructive fossil fuel industry interests.

The Radical Yes campaign highlights how the three largest Westminster parties essentially have the same policies – the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats all support austerity, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, nuclear weapons industry and university tuition fees, and the list goes on. The three parties have also united in the Better Together campaign against independence, making the outcome uncertain as voter turnout is expected to be unusually high.

After visiting Scotland and interviewing those campaigning for Radical Yes, I sense this as a moment of unprecedented possibility for Scotland to peacefully reject the U.K.'s failed neoliberal agenda. In potential, it's comparable with the shifts we've seen in Ecuador and other South America countries after the continent was ravaged by debt crises. Parallels can also be made with Iceland’s moves towards direct democracy after the 2008 crash.

The Opportunity of Independence

“Scotland seems the most exciting country in Europe to be in right now, [as] politics has been taken from the realm of politicians and put back into the spaces where people live,” says Robin McAlpine, director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation, which published the visionary agenda known as the Common Weal.

“Almost everything is imaginable" in the new Scotland, adds McAlpine. "It shows just how capable people are of becoming involved in democracy – so long as they have something meaningful to get involved in.”

Reflecting the Radical Independence Campaign's ethics, the Common Weal sets out an alternative Scottish society, rejecting the neoliberal tenet that markets should drive society. Instead, it advocates mutual development, equality and inclusiveness – in the genuine sense, a society for the 99%.

The Common Weal has incorporated Nordic principles such as "Folkshemmet," an approach to welfare that translates as "the people’s home." In Folkshemmet, state services and public benefits are universal, unlike the U.K. approach where privatization and service cuts remove access.

In practical terms, the Common Weal calls for measures such as a redistributive tax system to tackle inequality, making finance work for the economy, encouraging a cooperative model of industry and pushing development of renewable energy. To realize all this, it calls for a new model of participatory democracy.

A Participatory Scotland

“Independence would transform Scotland and change the mood. In a lot of ways it already has," said Pat Smith, who is involved in the Edinburgh branch of the Radical Independence Campaign. "Now people are engaged in politics in a way I have never seen before, like chatting on the bus or in any public place.”

I encountered Smith after a public meeting focused on women, independence and creating a society based around gender equality. With 80 in attendance, the event was an example of how the referendum is inspiring political activity; a large number in the crowd said they didn't previously attend regular meetings, but now they do.

Among the points discussed there was the alarming statistic that four out of five food-bank users in Edinburgh are female. Other calls to address gender equality included making women more equally represented in Scottish Parliament, and enabling measures like easier access to abortion and contraception.

Within the meeting there was also talk about a new Scottish Constitution – with proposals that it would be created through a participatory process, echoing the new Icelandic Constitution that emerged after the financial crash.

“After a Yes [vote], a new Constitution could be a focus for people to engage, to give Scots a sense of who we are and what we stand for,” Smith said.

An Ethical Scotland

Scotland isn't overpopulated nor is it especially aging, which also helps explain the different, more tolerant approach from the U.K. that it takes to immigration. "We have a history of immigration so we are aware that people have to leave for work, especially due to poverty," Smith added. "Plus the system around the world is brutal and failing, so people must be allowed to move.”

Re-evaluating Scotland’s place in the world and rejecting Britain’s current dominant role is a core part of the Radical Yes movement. The pro-Scottish campaign opposes nuclear weapons and participation in wars generally – it staunchly protested the U.K.'s involvement with America going into Iraq.

Renewable energy innovations to replace climate threatening fossil fuels are another focal point of Radical Independence. Scotland is dubbed the '’Saudi Arabia of renewables," particularly for its success developing wind energy, but successive Westminster governments have failed to fully capitalize meaning investment has come in good part from the private sector."

"In order to create confidence to invest [in renewables], they need to know that the government is committed to the technology and not going to withdraw subsidies very suddenly,” says Stuart Roger, who compares Westminster's frequent climate deniers with a Scottish Parliament that views renewable energy has a fundamental asset.

Criticisms of the power of the fossil fuel include in the media. For instance, The Sun newspaper is pushing a fracking campaign over the U.K. and its owner Rupert Murdoch has fracking investments. More broadly, enabling free media has been central in Iceland’s moves towards direct democracy.

A Free Press in Scotland

Looking further north, Scotland has seen the way transparency and media freedom have been central in Iceland’s moves towards direct democracy, and it seeks to model its media off that success. McAlpine thinks the current standard of journalism in Scotland is poor compared to other countries.

“During the referendum campaign, virtually every newspaper proprietor and therefore all but one of the newspapers has been either implicitly or explicitly anti-Independence, and in most cases aggressively so," he says. "Scotland's newspapers have relentlessly pushed the No campaign, with some journalists so openly biased they should have registered as part of the official No campaign."

With Scotland’s traditional media collapsing and alternative media growing stronger to replace it, "the era of social media means there are entirely different sources of information altogether," McAlpine adds. "I estimate that at least about 250,000 Independence-supporting Scots now get their primary information about what is happening in this debate from sources other than the mainstream media – that's one in six of the adult population. Something is changing and changing fast. There is very strong reason to be concerned about the democratic role of the media in Scotland.”

Meanwhile, as momentum grows toward a Yes vote in Scotland, the challenge to Westminster-City of London dominance is also beginning to resonate south of the Scottish border as democratic and economic crises mount across the U.K. Stay tuned for this follow-up article on Occupy.com.

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