During the live launch, I and other members of the audience posed a series of questions to the panel of party representatives. They cover most of the commonly-asked questions Cape independence representatives face - some legal, some practical.

The party will run on all three ballots next year (national, provincial, regional), to maximise representation, and seek seats in national parliament to challenge ANC and EFF representatives.

The general strategy regarding the DA was articulated as one in which the RP will work with and support the DA for a DA administration, but use the gain in votes to force the DA to hold a referendum. The voters they are targeting in particular with their coming marketing campaign, to be launched early next year, will be those voters who would most strongly desire independence, but also still vote for the DA - leaving a clear gap between RP support and VF+ support.

To explain why the party itself was launched in the first place, Craig explained that lobbying efforts have failed, and the DA have proven themselves to be unwilling to cooperate on friendly terms, and that despite a clear legal mandate for declaring a referendum, had chosen not to do so. The movement has thus been forced to take more drastic measures.

When asked in person how he would ensure the DA do not renege on the conditions for a coalition, Craig took a committed stance to an indefinite escalation of tactics, conveying the attitude of "by any means necessary", likening himself to Moses bringing twelve plagues upon the DA should they refuse to let the people go to the polls.

Phil Craig likens the RP to the Brexit Party - a means of pressuring the governing party into doing the right thing, without threatening their ability to deliver governance.

Audience members during the press conference were concerned about what the RP would mean for the Moonshot Pact, the cross-party anti-Charterist coalition aiming to unseat the ANC next year. While Yusuf Heylen stated that the party believed it was extremely unlikely for the Pact to win, they declared they would do nothing to upset the apple cart in the interior of South Africa. The RP will "do everything to ensure" the DA continues to run the Western Cape, provided they agree to a referendum. This means support for the "Moonshot Pact".

According to Phil Craig, the potential support for the party consists of roughly 800 000 individuals, matching roughly the number of signatures collected by CapeXit over the past few years, whose voting intentions are known, and can be used for targeted campaigning.

In the post-launch interview, Phil explained that this number was surprisingly not derived from the CapeXit database, which chairman Des Palm does not open for public research due to the nature of the confidentiality contract he entered into with signatories. Instead, the data is derived from pattern-driven analysis of the data collected during the polling by Victory Research, which was used to generate profiles for targeted social media advertising.

According to this method, the core voter base consists of roughly those 800k voters, who can be subjected to targeted advertising alone, rather than wasting limited funds on attempting to reach more reluctant elements of the population. By targeting those already convinced of the necessity of independence, the party van rally their base and achieve the necessary minimum voter threshold of 100 000 to score 5% of the provincial vote, and force the DA to negotiate a referendum to form a coalition.

Asked to clarify the legal basis for the secession plan outlined by the party, Donald Brown explained that the Constitution does grant the right for the Premier to call a referendum, but in the absence of legislation, a judge can rule it legal by "reading in" to existing legislation, to bring it in line with rights conferred by Constitutional law.

Should the referendum be granted, research indicates that support for secession is overwhelming - with 58% of polling participants already being in favour.

As for achieving the actual separation, Craig explained that the Western Cape government already exists, and it merely needs to negotiate for basic terms regarding debts and assets with the SA govt.

What will happen if the ANC refuses to negotiate? International law declares there is no legal prohibition on the choice to secede unilaterally. It would force all debts upon the SA govt, and create legal terms for unilateral declaration of independence.

Additionally, when there is a referendum, the international community will place pressure on the SA govt to accede to the democratic mandate created by that referendum result.

In person, I posed a more controversial question, which many commentators have been rather concerned about - the issue of political violence. However, Craig was unfazed. His analysis (which agrees with assessments I have made elsewhere in the past) is that the ability for the ANC to mobilise here in the Cape is extremely limited.

The 2021 riots demonstrated zero capacity to disrupt public life in the Western Cape, and were limited to areas in the east and north of the country, and in addition, the national military have demonstrated a categorical incapacity to offer basic logistical support to a peaceful post-riot deployment, rapidly running out of food and water before any operations could be initiated.

The only recent example of a disturbance related to ANC power structures was the taxi cartel strike last month, which was swiftly put down by metro police under the command of JP Smith, who broke the power of the ruling-party connected taxi cartels in just one week.

As Phil Craig put it in the conference - "This is our country, we belong here, and anyone who says we don't, can bugger off!"