Bid for Scottish Independence Falls

The Supreme Court has unanimously decided that the Scottish Parliament will not be able to move forward with a Bill to pursue a second independence referendum.

I will cover the judgment in more detail on the podcast but Lord Reed gave a short statement this morning summarising the decision. Before the Justices walked into the courtroom there were essentially three options:

1. They could decide not to rule on the case (a position advocated by counsel for the UK government).

2. They could say that the Scottish Parliament does have competence to pass the Bill and hold a referendum.

3. They could hold that such competence does not exist and the Bill must fall.

In the end the court plumped for option 3 and decided against the Lord Advocate and the SNP.

Even though the UK government advocated for option 1, they will surely be happy with the decision. In the end the court decided that they could and should make a definitive ruling because of the public importance of the case. Furthermore it is not as if this is a hypothetical question because the Bill does exist and currently sits before the Scottish Parliament.

So what was the legal basis for denying a referendum?

For the Justices the decision clearly relates to a matter which has been reserved to the UK Parliament; the status of the Union itself. The Lord Advocate argued that any such referendum would only be advisory and not actually affect the status quo but Lord Reed noted that the Supreme Court was not blind to the political consequences of a referendum result, no matter which way the decision goes.

The SNP intervened in the case and made arguments relating to the right to self-determination under international law but that was also rejected because the Scottish example, it was said, does not fall within that definition.

A final point: it is helpful that the President of the Supreme Court and the man to hand down this decision is Lord Reed who was born in Scotland. This will give the decision a greater degree of legitimacy rather than it appearing as if the English are making a decision against the Scots. The unanimity of the court will also help in that regard.

What do you think of the decision? I have opened up comments in this post so you can have your say.