Which is all the more galling considering Sturgeon has done nothing to advance a referendum during his tenure
What were you expecting her to do?
Put the referendum bill to the Scottish parliament, get it passed and wait for the legal action from UK govt
She sided with the UK state to stymie the case that did go before the court last year (Keatings)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-55955965
Sturgeon has posted Johnson's letter in response to her request for a referendum. Unsurprisingly, he's not in favour.
Not a lot of point in going for IndyRef2 if you are not certain of winning it. She needs hard poll numbers well above 50% in favour so without that, keep banging the drum and keep the powder dry. The last thing she needs is a referendum being lost.
So why is she going for one now, the polls have barely shifted the last few years?
Polls were 30% when the Edinburgh agreement was signed
I assume, like the scorpion and the frog, that is what a politician of a independence party does. It is a hope on her part that the polls can only improve.
Sturgeon waited until she is almost out of road before she did anything. The competence of the Scottish parliament to hold a referendum without a Section 30 could have been tested years ago but nothing was done. In fact, legal analysis of the current referral to the Supreme Court is that the action will fail precisely in the same manner as it failed for Keatings last year (hypothetical situation). The Supreme Court decides on points of law and is not a legal advice service (which is what Sturgeon has asked)
In fairness to her, realistically she had to tread carefully during the pandemic. There would have been a big backlash against a referendum push during the worst of it.
Some unionists were offering condolences to the SNP about Boris's resignation. I agree with this journalist on her assessment that it makes little difference. Johnson is just a symptom of what is wrong not the cause.
After he made his sort-of-resignation speech, a few Scottish unionists were quick to appear on Twitter offering sarcastic condolences to Nicola Sturgeon, who, they opined, had now lost her single best argument for Scottish independence; but while Johnson certainly is unpopular in Scotland, these comments tend to tell us more about current levels of denial in the unionist camp, than they do about the case for independence.
For the truth about Johnson is that however much of a “character” he is – difficult to dismiss in every sense of the word – his premiership is fundamentally a symptom of all that is wrong with the Westminster system, rather than a cause; and it’s that sense of a system that is no longer delivering for Scotland, and is sometimes failing even to meet minimum standards of 21st century democratic decision-making, that drives support for independence in Scotland, rather than the fate of a single politician, however iconic.
Very good article, worth a read. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers for that.
I still think that there is an advantage to having BJ in power for the SNP. But any of the other awful choices will be just as positive. Be grand.
If independence hinged on the whims of a single caricature Tory, then clearly Unionists of any hue were not paying attention in the first instance; nor understand the driver towards independence from Westminster.
I wonder will this become the popular response from Tory leader contenders? Problem with this is that in the Good Friday Agreement it states if a border poll results in a No vote, the next one can be held after a minimum of 7 years if there is an appetite for one. Don't think it will go down well in Scotland to tell people that they'd have to put up with what would amount to an 18 year gap.
The replies to that Scotsman article are pure Tory. Is it a Tory paper?
Yeah. It's an outpost of the Times.
Do they 'select' replies?
It is not a Tory paper but definitely takes a unionist stance. The comments are likely to reflect the ahem demographics of it's readership and those most likely to post comments on the website.
The only paper in Scotland that supports independence is the Herald
You'd wanna have a word with the The National so...
https://www.thenational.scot/
The Herald owns the National so I do not really see them as that different.
The Herald definitely does not support independence and is in fact a unionist paper. Newsquest owns both the Herald and the National but only the National out of all newspapers in Scotland supports independence
Well, who would have suspected it? The UK govt is using the same argument the Scottish govt used when they fought the Keatings case last year
"In its submission to the Supreme Court case brought at the behest of the first minister, lawyers for the Scotland Office argued that the question of whether Holyrood has the powers to hold a unilateral vote cannot be tested without a bill first being passed in Edinburgh.
In a one and a half page submission, the UK government argued that the Scotland Act — created at the dawn of devolution — sets out a process to test whether legislation is within the competence of Holyrood, which begins once it has been approved by MSPs.
Scottish ministers made similar points when arguing that a test case was invalid.
Martin Keatings, an independence campaigner, ultimately saw his request that the courts rule whether Holyrood had the power to stage a referendum without the UK government’s consent thrown out."
Apologies it was the Sunday version of the Herald
But to be fair the Herald was not unequivocal about staying in the union
The Herald has changed a lot since then
Which of the two British PM candidates would be the more likely to cause support for independence to grow? Or does it matter at this stage after the Johnson years? I would think Truss would be better for those who favour independence since she looks out of her depth, seems to have a desire to become Thatcher 2.0, and has indicated she will refuse another referendum no matter what.
Truss. But either will keep the push on Yes.
I think the Tory party being in power is probably the greatest assist to the Yes vote in Scotland
Yup. And has been.
That said, given just how pathetic the Scottish branch of Labour has been, it'll make no odds who's in power at Westminster at this point.
Any odds on a mainland clean sweep for the SNP at the next GE?
If Truss gets voted in then the Yes vote will keep momentum!
Truss is likely the "better" candidate in terms of the pro-independence narrative, but either way a hardcore Tory isn't going to strengthen the bonds North and South of the border. Meanwhile, has Sunak even offered an opinion? He comes across as Anglo-centric as his predecessors ever were.
We saw with the recent Question Time that took place in Scotland, the Tories remain utterly despised - heck even the Border Counties have started to lose their Blue hue IIRC those last remaining Tory holdouts looking a little shaky now.
