There has been jubilation in the nationalist movement on Tuesday after Nicola Sturgeon unveiled his new roadmap to independence. Some thought it was a brilliant legal coup, which charged the Supreme Court with the independence bill. It was time, Yessers said frustratedly. Others thought it posed a threat of a unilateral declaration of independence if Westminster did not yield.
It turned out it wasn’t any of that stuff. This was another postponement, perhaps more imaginative, but nonetheless. The independence movement this weekend is back where it started. There is very little chance of holding a referendum on October 19, 2023.
It was always a strange idea to use the UK Supreme Court to facilitate the break-up of Britain. It may be presided over by a Scotsman, Lord Reed, but the court is not able to judge on politics, only law. The law, as laid down in the Scotland Act 1998, is clear: the constitution is a matter reserved for Westminster.
If the court agrees to consider the matter, and it would be unusual for the court to rule on a hypothetical question raised by a bill which has not yet passed the Scottish Parliament, it must surely decide that the Scottish Parliament can do nothing. this could have an impact on existing UK constitutional agreements.
Courtesy drama
Perhaps it is conceivable, only, for the court to say that the Scottish Parliament has the right to ask for a proof of opinion, a large opinion poll, rather like the 1994 Strathclyde referendum on water privatization. But that would be pushing it. The fact that it is a “consultative” referendum called for by the Scottish government is irrelevant. As Nicola Sturgeon herself made clear, the 2014 and 2016 referendums were also consultative. The UK Parliament had to pass a law to implement the leave vote. If Scotland had voted Yes in 2014, the same would have applied.
Under the Section 30 Order, negotiated in the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012, Alex Salmond had a guarantee from the UK government that the outcome of this consultation would be respected. But this only underscores the extent to which convening an independence referendum is the sole responsibility of the UK Parliament.
As the court has repeatedly said in recent Brexit rulings, all acts of the Scottish Parliament must be ratified by Westminster, the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom. There is no chance for MPs to vote for him. Labor opposes a referendum like Conservatives. Sir Keir Starmer is desperate to avoid any suggestions that he is in bed with the SNP. So this is a dead end.
‘Prison’?
Ms Sturgeon made it clear that it would be intolerable for Scotland to be “imprisoned” in an alleged “voluntary union” from which there is no legitimate democratic way out. They were strong words. The implication, as many nationalists took it, was that there would be a case for extra-parliamentary action, even though the FM did not say so.
What he did say is that the 2024 general election would become a “de facto referendum.” His deputy, John Swinney, filled in the blanks by telling Good Morning Scotland that a majority of seats in these elections would be a mandate to start negotiations to leave the UK.
Unfortunately, he had not heard it, because the Prime Minister had meant a majority of votes, not seats.
It was an understandable confusion. In the days leading up to decentralization, it was considered that if the SNP won the majority of seats in a general election, it would be seen as a mandate for independence, a correct one.
It is difficult to remember how recent the electoral success of the SNP really is. Until the late 1990s, the prospect of the SNP winning most of the seats in a general election was as likely as the Monster Raving Loony Party forming a government in Westminster.
Even in 2010, the SNP only won six Scottish seats out of 59. It was Salmond’s genius to somehow take advantage of a unique set of circumstances in the Scottish Parliament elections the following year to get a spectacular result. .
The UK government was still confident that independence was a minority passion, which is why David Cameron accepted a referendum. He longed not to have done so.
From scratch, the Yes campaign captured the imagination of many Scots and resulted in a 45% Yes, 55% No result in September 2014. It was a near-death experience for the Kingdom state. United.
Then, in the 2015 general election, despite losing the referendum, the SNP won all but three Scottish seats. In the past, this would have been a super majority for independence.
However, the UK government ignored it for unreasonable reasons that the matter had been resolved, in the words of the SNP itself, “for a generation” in the 2014 vote.
Ms Sturgeon’s goal of the most popular vote in 2024 is a mountain to climb. Even in 2015, the SNP barely got 50% of the vote.
Most Scots say they do not want a referendum next year. As Professor Jim Mitchell pointed out last week, an academic highly resected by pro-independence people, a general election is not a referendum and no party can turn it into one. The SNP may offer a one-line manifesto, but manifestos are the unread grains.
Legitimacy denied
OF ALL, after this de facto referendum, with whom would the victorious Scottish government negotiate? As Nicola Sturgeon said in his statement, several times for his troops to understand the message, he would only consider a valid referendum legitimized by an Article 30 order passed by Westminster. To repeat: no Westminster party will support this request.
The only possibility would be for Labor to seek an electoral alliance with the SNP, and that will not happen.
It may be that in the turmoil of the post-election period, with crowded demonstrations and angry Scottish nationalists harassing the Scottish Parliament and building barricades like its counterparts in Barcelona in 2017, Westminster could be persuaded to give in if it threatened the peace of the kingdom. .
But one thing is certain. A referendum held in these circumstances would no doubt be lost. Nicola Sturgeon is not revolutionary and neither are the Scots. With the excited nationalists causing riots, Scottish voters would return.
Mrs. Sturgeon is a prudent and intelligent lawyer. Last week, he tricked his similar activist wing into adopting his tactics, to better demonstrate that they lead nowhere. Some are now beginning to branch out. But they have nowhere else to go.
Perhaps it would be better to accept the situation and negotiate greater economic power for Holyrood. This is something that Labor, and many Conservatives, would agree on if it meant attenuating Barnett’s formula.
Independence would be achieved progressively.
As he has said many times before, there is no easy path to independence. It’s a long, hard road, and it’s unlikely to lead him long after 2024 when, like his partner Birgitte Nyborg of Borgen, Nicola Sturgeon goes on a big job abroad.