The UK electorate’s decision to leave the European Union, even as a majority of Scots voted Remain, gave Sturgeon the excuse she wanted to fire up her activist base and start demanding a new referendum. But if Brexit “changed everything”, it was hard to explain why opinion polls showed that the Scots themselves had not changed their minds, that a majority had decided they would rather live in a UK outside the EU than a returned Scotland. within the trading bloc. However, claiming a mandate from the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, in which her party did not have an overall majority, the first minister has begun to push for another Section 30 Order that would allow her government to begin organizing the second “once in a generation” referendum. in three years. But Theresa May, who had replaced David Cameron at Number 10, said no. This was a great development. Nationalists were now used to UK governments doing whatever they asked, whether it was independence referendums or more devolved powers. The Gordon Brown and Cameron eras had really spoiled the nationalists. But now they came up against an unyielding brick wall. When Boris Johnson replaced May in 2019, the answer was the same: “Now is not the time.”
Uncertainty and division
This was a dilemma for Sturgeon. Faced with a series of setbacks and scandals in domestic politics, she needed the distraction of another referendum. More importantly, he needed to make progress on this unique policy. Otherwise what was the point of the SNP being in power? In the 2021 Holyrood election, her party again fell short of an overall majority, leading to a deal with the pro-independence Scottish Greens. Last week, the First Minister capitulated to her own members. Despite insisting for years that he would not support a “wildcat” or illegal referendum, he announced that he had set 19 October 2023 as the polling day for the next vote. And, mindful of the Scottish Parliament’s limits on setting policy on a matter reserved for Westminster, she announced her plan would be referred to the High Court. If the court ruled that the referendum proposal was ultra vires and beyond the legal scope of Holyrood, it would revert to Plan B: make the next UK general election a “de facto” referendum, which the SNP would used as a mandate to open independence negotiations with the UK government. All of this is miles away from the cultured, modest language Sturgeon has been accustomed to using in recent years. He was desperate for a formal referendum to be approved by the UK because that would be the only path to international recognition of Scottish independence, including a future path to EU membership. But such considerations are not important to too many of the First Minister’s campaigners, who would happily settle for a unilateral declaration of independence if that was the only way to break free from the UK. In fact, for many of them, this would be their preferred choice. But now it is hard to see a way forward for Sturgeon. While the Supreme Court is impossible to predict, judges are widely expected to veto her plans – especially as recent precedent has shown that the Scottish Parliament cannot pass legislation that compels, or even pressures, the government of the United Kingdom to act in a certain way. But even if, somehow, the court approves a watered-down form of referendum, the vast majority of pro-UK Scots will boycott it, rendering the result meaningless and absolving Westminster of any obligation to even acknowledge that it took place. And as for Plan B, does any party have the right to redefine what a general election is? Who is to say why individual voters place an X in this or that box? This is a “strategy” that barely merits description. Sturgeon’s main complaint is that the UK government is taking her at her word and refusing to support another referendum within what is usually accepted as a ‘generation’. But instead of acknowledging her inability to do anything about the constitutional framework that limits her actions, she chose to do what leaders should never do: she decided to tell her supporters what they want to hear, not what they should. to hear. . The consequences for Scotland are another year to eighteen months of uncertainty and division. The consequences for the First Minister’s party, at least in the long term, could be truly disastrous.
