This isn't a party. It's an argument, made in public.
decide.scot is a testing ground for a new model of democracy for an independent Scotland: no politicians deciding for you, citizens voting directly on where their taxes go, and ministers who execute rather than decide, removable the moment they fail. This page explains why it exists, what it actually is right now, and answers the questions people ask first.
Why this exists
Representative democracy asks you to hand someone your vote once every few years and trust they'll spend your taxes the way you would have. Most people don't trust that anymore, and the trust wasn't unreasonable to lose: promises get traded away in coalition rooms, budgets get decided by people who'll never live with the result, and the only real recourse is waiting years for another single choice among a handful of parties.
decide.scot starts from a different premise: modern verification and voting technology finally makes it possible for citizens to decide directly, at national scale, without collapsing into either chaos or a rubber stamp for whoever shouts loudest. That's the entire bet. Everything else on this site, tax, housing, sovereign wealth, is one attempt at what a country built on that bet would actually choose to do.
What decide.scot actually is right now
Two documents, mostly. The Foundation Paper is the current draft of the whole model: tax, housing, the sovereign wealth fund, how ministers get removed, all written out like an actual policy document because vague enthusiasm doesn't survive contact with a real budget. The Blueprint is the live floor underneath it: anyone can propose a specific change, argue it out with the case for and against sitting side by side, and if the proposal crosses its threshold, it gets folded into the paper's next draft.
There is no fixed political power behind either of them yet. This is not a registered political party, it doesn't run candidates, and there's no funding to disclose because there isn't any. It exists to find out, in public, whether a genuinely detailed version of this model survives being argued with by people who actually try to break it, before anyone attaches it to a real referendum.
Who wrote this
The Foundation Paper was written by one citizen, and left deliberately unsigned. Its own preface explains why: the idea should be judged on its own terms, not read as one person's manifesto the moment a name attaches to it. The rest of the site keeps that habit. There's no team page, no founder photos, no bios, because who first wrote a clause matters far less than whether it survives being argued with by everyone else on the Blueprint.
Questions people ask first
Is this a political party?
No. Nothing here runs candidates or asks for your vote in an election. It's a policy model and a live testing ground for it. If a real party ever adopts pieces of it, that's a decision made in public, elsewhere, not something decided on this site.
Do I need to support independence to take part?
No. You can disagree entirely on the timing or the method of independence and still shape what a decision-making model would look like if it happened. The Foundation Paper's premise is a post-independence Scotland, but arguing about the mechanism doesn't require agreeing on the politics that gets there.
Hasn't direct democracy already failed elsewhere?
Mostly at the wrong scale, or without a split between principle and policy. Ancient Athens couldn't verify a million ballots overnight; national referendum systems stay narrow because paper ballots don't scale to routine budgeting. Every clause here splits into two tiers: a handful of unchangeable rules about how power moves, and everything else, which is what most day-to-day decisions actually are. That split, plus modern verification tools, is the actual bet: that the past failures were about scale and safeguards, not the core idea.
What stops a majority just voting away rights, or defunding a minority?
A short bill of rights sits inside the unchangeable core, entrenched above the ordinary budget vote, changeable only by the same overwhelming supermajority that protects the rest of the mechanism. A single bad-tempered budget cycle can't touch it, by design.
Who handles foreign policy, defence, or things too technical for a citizen vote?
Elected ministers still exist and still run departments day to day. The difference is what they're allowed to do with that power: they execute what's already been decided and can be removed the moment they fail to, rather than accumulating power for a fixed term. Direction stays with citizens; complex execution stays with accountable ministers.
Is this actually going to happen, or is it a thought experiment?
Right now, honestly, it's a testing ground. There's no fixed political power behind it, no party, no funding to disclose. It exists to find out whether a genuinely detailed version of this model holds up to real argument before anyone attaches it to an actual referendum. Whether it happens depends on whether enough people decide the model is worth backing once they've actually read it and tried to break it.
Who's behind this?
The Foundation Paper was written by one citizen, deliberately unsigned. The site keeps that habit: there's no team page, no founder photos, because who first wrote something matters far less than whether it survives being argued with.
What happens to my postcode and email?
Your postcode proves you’re in Scotland and sets your region; it’s never shown. Your email exists only so one person can’t quietly re-register as ten citizens. Your handle isn’t shown either, handles get reused across platforms and can be personally identifying, so it’s used only to secure your account. What appears next to your contributions is an auto-assigned citizen number only, the same one on your profile, never your handle, postcode, or email.
Why don't I get to pick my own name on here?
Because a chosen handle isn't real anonymity. People reuse handles across platforms, pick recognisable ones, or end up identifiable just by combining a stated region with their own writing style, especially in a smaller region where only a few hundred citizens might take part. Instead, you get an auto-assigned citizen number the moment you join, permanent, yours, and not traceable back to anything you'd rather keep private.
What stops people spamming the Blueprint or the Foundation Paper's comments?
An automated filter catches the obvious stuff, community reports flag the rest, and everything flagged goes to a randomly drawn panel of citizens who vote to keep, remove, or escalate it, blind to who wrote it. Nobody on the platform has the standing power to delete a citizen's words alone. The full rulebook is public. Read the Rulebook.
What's the difference between the Blueprint and the Foundation Paper?
The Foundation Paper is the current draft of the whole model. The Blueprint is the live floor where anyone proposes a specific change, argues it out, and, if it clears its threshold, gets folded into the paper’s next draft. The paper is the snapshot; the Blueprint is where it gets rewritten.
This page is itself Tier Two: if something here reads wrong, or a question is missing, argue it on the Blueprint like anything else.