The Conservative-led coalition at Westminster has launched a bid to force the Scottish government to call a referendum on independence earlier than First Minister Alex Salmond and the SNP had planned. The move threatens a constitutional conflict which could end up in the Supreme Court.
The British Government claims that the Scottish Parliament has no legal authority to hold a referendum of its own, and that only the Westminster Parliament has the constitutional power to do so.
It has offered to cede this power to Holyrood, subject to a set of conditions which seek to alter fundamentally the terms on which an independence referendum will be held.
Condition number one is an ultimatum to bring the date forward to within the next 18 months, that is, by the summer of 2013.
Further conditions include that the vote should be legally binding. It should be a single question for or against independence. Westminster has to be consulted on the wording of the question, and the actual date for the ballot. Under-18s should not be allowed to vote.
Ministers have said any attempt by the ruling SNP government to conduct the advisory referendum it planned to call in the autumn of 2014 could be subject to legal challenge.
On one aspect all parties, for and against independence, are agreed – that the coalition’s manoeuvres have a single objective: to secure a legally-binding “No” vote, which could bury the issue for years to come.
Any second question relating to the possibility of further extending Holyrood’s existing powers, often known as “devo-max”, is being specifically excluded.
The SNP has responded by angrily rejecting these demands and claiming that it has a clear mandate to carry out a referendum of its own in the second half of this Scottish Parliament, based on the stunning overall majority in Holyrood which it won at the May 2011 elections.
Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont MSP has indicated that Labour would welcome an earlier referendum, with a single question. She evaded media questions as to whether Labour would campaign alongside the Conservatives for a No vote.
The Labour opposition at Westminster, and its Scottish partners, were apparently taken completely by surprise when the coalition launched this head-on confrontation with the SNP.
It seems there was no attempt to consult the Labour leadership in advance over this attempt to take over the referendum and effectively run it from London, on Westminster’s terms.
Both the coalition and the SNP will be undertaking consultations over their respective proposals in the coming months.
