‘Now is not the time’ is not an answer to anything, not least since no one has actually suggested a second referendum on Scottish independence take place ‘now’. In that respect, the Prime Minister’s line today answers precisely nothing and cannot be sustained inevitably. I should have thought this sufficiently obvious enough that even people in Downing Street could have discerned this. But evidently not.
The SNP are past-masters when it comes to mining grievance. That being so, however, you wonder at a strategy that hands them a gold-plated grievance and does not even seek to charge them a fair price for it. Theresa May might as well have said: ‘Here, have this one for free’.
So of course Nicola Sturgeon considers the Prime Minister’s reluctance to allow a second referendum some fresh ‘democratic outrage’. That’s what the first minister is there to do. And it is true that if it weren’t this, it would simply be something else.
Nevertheless, since a Section 30 order allowing a legal referendum would take at least a year to organise, it was already vanishingly unlikely that there could be any referendum by the end of next year, the notional timeframe Sturgeon suggested on Monday.
Britain’s best politics newsletters
You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in