The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that Holyrood does not have the authority to hold a second referendum without Westminster’s consent. There will not be a vote next October, as Sturgeon had planned. She’d also previously insisted the SNP would “put our case for independence to the people in an election” if the Court ruled against her. How that would actually work, when there’s no legal recourse for it, is presumably something she’ll just have to worry about later…
UPDATE: Sturgeon responds:
“A law that doesn’t allow Scotland to choose our own future without Westminster consent exposes as myth any notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership & makes case for Indy. Scottish democracy will not be denied. Today’s ruling blocks one route to Scotland’s voice being heard on independence – but in a democracy our voice cannot and will not be silenced.”
She’s delivering a full statement in an hour…
Ahead of Nicola Sturgeon unveiling her new “route map” to Scottish Independence later today, new FoI requests from Scotland in Union have revealed the SNP has already massively ramped up its staffing resources to prepare for separation, even without the legal consent of Westminster. The number of civil servants working on the independence blueprint has jumped from 11 to 20, nearly doubling since the last reports in January, with the total estimated cost to the taxpayer now hitting £1.2 million a year. Not to mention the £20 million already earmarked for holding the referendum itself…
Scotland in Union director Alastair Cameron said:
“This revelation demonstrates a totally unacceptable waste of taxpayers’ money by the SNP. These are senior, highly-paid and expert civil servants who could be devoting their time to pressing matters such as reducing NHS waiting times or closing the attainment gap in our schools. Instead, they have been tasked by SNP ministers with working on a blueprint to divide the people of Scotland.”
It was only a month ago when the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned the Scottish Government could face a £3.5 billion hole in its finances by 2026 if it didn’t stop overspending. Yesterday Sturgeon told Scots the only way to avoid the global cost of living crisis is to go independent – by the looks of things at every measure IndyRef2’s already making things worse…
Theresa May: “Now is not the time for second referendum” #indyref2 https://t.co/RJs3oYszP4
— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 16, 2017
May speaks and says ‘not now’, i.e. not before Brexit is complete. Nats meltdown in 3, 2, 1…
Scottish government ministers spent yesterday afternoon ringing around companies and trade bodies to discuss Sturgeon’s announcement on IndyRef2. One recipient of such a phone call reports that the SNP minister they spoke to was keen to allay business fears. The minister conceded that a Scottish referendum before Brexit is unlikely – despite Sturgeon’s demand for a vote by Spring 2019 – but they privately hope for one “shortly afterwards”. There are obviously significant obstacles to another Scottish referendum before Brexit is sorted, one being that Theresa May is hardly going to want one before, say, 2021. Almost as if the Nats aren’t being entirely honest with the public…
“It is clear that our voice and our interests can be ignored at any time and at any issue. This is where we stand today… I cannot pretend to the Scottish people that a compromise agreement looks remotely likely… I will now take the steps necessary to make sure that Scotland will have a choice at the end of this process. A choice of whether to follow the UK to a hard Brexit or to become an independent country… The Scottish government’s mandate for offering this choice is beyond doubt.”
She will next week seek a Section 30 order from the UK government to give Holyrood the power to hold a referendum between autumn 2018 and spring 2019…
