Salmond: Scotland Free By 2016?

So, the game is afoot. The Scottish government today published its consultation document on an independence referendum to be held in the autumn of 2014. You can read it all here though I should warn you that most of it is entirely unobjectionable. If Mr Salmond is the salesman he hopes he is, the next Scottish parliament – due to be elected in May 2016 – will be the first to govern an independent nation since that auld sang ended in 1707.

I notice, however, that the favoured question proffered by the SNP has changed. As recently as last year it proposed asking for a mandate to open negotiations. This has become a simpler, more direct question: Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?  No “maybe” box is provided for responses. This appears to satisfy everyone’s desire that the matter be put clearly. Nevertheless, one is struck by the problem that “independent country” is, these days, a matter of degree as well as taste.

Be that as it may, this kind of question makes it clear there’ll only be one referendum. There will be no going back, you know and no plebiscite to welcome or reject the outcome of any negotiations between London and Edinburgh.

Will it be legal? The Scottish Government make it plain they desire a Section 30 order amending the Scotland Act that would transfer to Holyrood the power to hold a referendum of this ilk in ways unlikely to agitate our learned friends at Parliament House. That is as dandy as you could hope and all might be well but for the problems of conditions and, indeed, a second question. The consultation document is not perhaps as convincing as it might be on this. Apparently:

A wide range of opinion has been expressed about whether or not the Scottish Parliament has the power to hold a referendum consulting the Scottish people about independence. The Scottish Government’s February 2010 paper set out a referendum question asking whether the powers of the Scottish Parliament should be extended to enable independence to be achieved. The Scottish Parliament has the power to legislate for a referendum as long as that would not change any reserved law or relate to those aspects of the constitution which are reserved by the Scotland Act 1998. The referendum question proposed in 2010 was carefully phrased to comply with that requirement. Much independent legal opinion supports the Scottish Government’s view.

What is beyond any question is the ability of the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a referendum about changes to the powers of the Scottish Parliament within the framework of devolution. Legislation to hold a referendum on “devolution max”, for example, is clearly within the existing powers of the Scottish Parliament.

Perhaps. I am not sure that Her Majesty’s Government, far less the courts, necessarily agree with the second paragraph here. Is it really “beyond any question” that a secondary referendum on “devolution max” is “clearly” within “the existing powers of the Scottish parliament”?

This is where the battle will be: one question or two? Two questions on one day or a fortnight apart? Apples or oranges only or will the (putatively more popular) option of bananas be offered the public too? Who can tell? This consultation document says the Scottish government will work with Westminster provided Westminster recognises the limitations of its purview. This is not a view liable to be shared by all.

As for other matters, the SNP have sensibly conceded it is fine for the Electoral Commission to oversee the plebiscite. Their opposition to this never made any sense and must, I think, be seen as a ploy to allow them to seem reasonable when retreating from a manifestly bogus, trumped-up objection.

The consultation repeats the SNP view that the franchise be extended (for all elections) to 16 and 17 year-olds. Having thought about this for a while, it seems a reasonable modification to the existing regulations. If they are permitted to marry they can surely be trusted to blunder at the ballot box too? True, you might also think they should be permitted to purchase a pint or a packet of fags too but that’s another matter.

Who else may vote?

British citizens resident in Scotland, Commonwealth citizens resident in Scotland, citizens of the Republic of Ireland and other EU countries resident in Scotland, members of the House of Lords resident in Scotland, Service/Crown personnel serving in the UK or overseas in the Armed Forces or with Her Majesty’s Government who are registered to vote in Scotland.

Again, this seems sensible even if it produces the curious reality that a good number of the men representing Scotland in rugby and football will not be eligible to vote on their country’s future. I see few easy ways round this, however. Perhaps it would be possible for all those who can demonstrate they were born in Scotland to enjoy a vote; evidently this would increase the cost of the plebiscite. Even then, many with close and dear connections to Scotland and who consider themselves Scots would not be eligible to vote. It is not likely to be possible to produce an electoral roll that satisfies everyone and the restrictions suggested in the consultation document are at least clear and reasonable even if, like any alternative, it can’t be perfect.

How you get to a second question, however, remains the biggest of all the unresolved issues. Perhaps, since we’re all being consulted, the simplest approach of all would be a multi-option referendum run on the Single Transferable Vote in which the options were:

1. Independence 2. Devolution Max 3. What We Have Now 4. Abolition of the Scottish Parliament