A PEOPLE'S Vow designed to trump the Unionist pre-referendum promise of more devolution was unveiled last night at the climax of a record gathering of the left-wing Radical Independence Campaign (RIC).
The statement was made "on behalf of the disappointed, the disaffected, the impoverished and the frightened", according to its authors, who included Socialists, Greens, anti-war campaigners and independence activists.
"This Vow is eternal, and will be honoured for so long as we, and the generation which follows us, and the generations which follow them, have breath in our lungs to do so," it said.
The statement was designed to outshine and outlast the vow made by the Tory, Labour and LibDem leaders before the referendum, which set out a timetable for new powers.
Details of the new powers are due to be announced this Thursday.
However, many Yes campaigners expect it to fall far short of delivering meaningful change.
The People's Vow contained commitments to "multiply the dreaming power of the ordinary Scottish citizen", and end the austerity which has become "the creed of the London elite".
There were also vows to renationalise industries for the common good, have more green energy, and establish a republic not a monarchy.
The reading of the statement, by author and playwright Alan Bissett, rounded off a day-long conference at the Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow attended by more than 3000 people.
The first RIC conference in 2012 attracted 800 people, and the second in 2013 managed 1200.
Organisers said that filling the auditorium - a venue not even the LibDems could pack for their recent UK conference - showed radical left ideas had entered Scotland's political mainstream as a result of the independence campaign.
The event also had a strong international strand, with representatives from Greece's Syriza party, Spain's Podemos, Quebec Solidaire and the far-left CUP group from Catalonia.
RIC played a key role in the Yes campaign, organising voter registration and canvassing events in working-class areas to try and reach the "missing million" of habitual non-voters.
The conference also announced five key campaign areas for RIC in the post-referendum period.
These will involve working out a "people's budget" as an alternative to austerity, and end to fracking, radical land reform, gender equality, rejection of nuclear weapons and Nato, and fighting the controversial US-EU trade deal known as TTIP.
RIC co-founder Cat Boyd said: "The aim is to show people how our movement is still growing. They say that history is written by those who are victorious. Well, on September 18, the people who won at the ballot box are those who will lose in the long-run.
"You only have to look at the chaos in Scottish Labour, the crisis at Westminster, to see that."
RIC co-founder Jonathan Shafi added: "We want to be part of the political furniture in Scotland." Earlier, Suki Sangha of the STUC general council, said there was no need to cut public services even if Westminster cut the Scottish grant.
"If that means we have more public debt then let it happen," she said, adding that the rich could also pay "a bit more tax".
Lawyer Aamer Anwar, who recently joined the SNP, made a sustained attack on the Labour Party, calling its MPs "parliamentary cretins". He called Labour leadership hopeful Jim Murphy a "war-mongering, lying hypocrite" who believed he could "hypnotise and paralyse the people of Scotland into voting Labour again. No more."
Former MSP Colin Fox, co-spokesperson of the Scottish Socialist Party, said independence had been deferred, not defeated, and called for Yes alliance candidates at the General Election, despite resistance to the idea from the SNP.
Green MSP Patrick Harvie said the RIC had to hold the SNP to account "as they enter a period of single-party domination the like of which the Labour Party only dreamed of."
Welcoming the vow, he added: "The radical agenda we want for Scotland is far more mainstream than Westminster, and indeed some at Holyrood, would dare to admit. Whether it's a Living Wage, renationalising public transport or reforming our feudal system of land ownership, a clear and overwhelming majority of people shares our belief that a better Scotland is possible."
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