The Scottish government has put itself on a constitutional collision course with the UK government after it set out plans to hold a second independence referendum in October 2023.
Announcing the plans on Tuesday (28 June) for a new bill on a referendum, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish parliament that the country was being held back by the UK and that she would not allow “Scottish democracy to be a prisoner of [UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson”.
“Now is the time – at this critical moment in history – to debate and decide the future of our country. Now is the time to get Scotland on the right path – the path chosen by those who live here. Now is the time for independence,” Sturgeon told lawmakers.
However, holding a poll is legally awkward. The Edinburgh government does not have the legal authority to call a referendum without the consent of the Westminster government and Johnson has stated that he will oppose a new poll. Opinion polls on the issue have been highly volatile and, over the past year, have indicated a small majority of Scots are in favour of staying part of the UK.
To circumvent the legal block, Sturgeon said that she would immediately refer the matter to the UK Supreme Court for adjudication. The Scottish National Party (SNP) government plans for the referendum to be consultative rather than legally binding in the hope that this will make it harder for the Court to rule it illegal. Should the Court rule that a referendum cannot be held, the First Minister said that the SNP would use the next UK general election, likely to be held in 2024, as a de facto referendum on independence.
Sturgeon said that if the Court ruled a referendum to be illegal, that would be ‘regrettable’ but would provide ‘clarity’.
“What it will clarify is this: any notion of the UK as a voluntary union of nations is a fiction. Any suggestion that the UK is a partnership of equals is false,” she said, adding that this would drive demand for independence.
The proposed bill would be based on the question “should Scotland be an independent country?”
The Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties all oppose Scottish independence, and Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has said that his party will not take part in a “pretend referendum” and accused the SNP of being ‘obsessed’ with independence.
Sturgeon’s SNP won last year’s Scottish parliament elections by another landslide victory, claiming 48% of the vote, after campaigning for a mandate to hold a new referendum. The first, which was held in September 2014, saw Scots vote to remain part of the UK by a 55-45% margin. Scotland then voted to stay in the EU by a 63-37% margin in 2016, leading the SNP government to contend that Scotland was forced to leave the bloc against its will.
[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]
Source: euractiv.com
