Ruling due on Scottish parliament’s power to hold independence referendum

The supreme court in London is set to rule on the Scottish parliament’s power to hold a referendum on independence.

The lord advocate referred a prospective Bill to hold a vote next year to the UK supreme court in a bid to test if such a move was in the legislative competence of Holyrood.

The court could rule the referendum is within legislative competence of Holyrood The Scottish government has said that, should a referendum be within the gift of the Scottish parliament, a Bill will be introduced and likely passed given the deal between the SNP and Scottish Greens.

Barring any issues, a vote would be held on October 19th next year.

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However, according to legal expert Dr Andrew Tickell, the UK government and other opponents of separation would not be powerless to stop another vote.

He said the UK government could block it using their Commons majority as a matter of law. Dr Tickell added that the possibility of a boycott by opposition parties to any referendum would “create a whole range of interesting implications”.

If the supreme court rules Holyrood cannot hold a referendum, hopes of a vote without Westminster consent are dashed.

The Scottish government will be forced to continue pushing for a Section 30 order that would provide Holyrood with the necessary powers to call another vote.

Another possibility would be if the court decides not to rule on the referral because the Bill has not been passed by Holyrood – a key plank of the UK government’s argument against the referral.

In such a situation, a number of different possibilities open up to the Scottish government.

Constitutional law professor Adam Tomkins said he viewed this option as the most likely.

“The Scotland Act provides for a system of referring the legislative competence of Bills passed by the Scottish parliament to the supreme court after they have been enacted,” he told the PA news agency.

“In this instance, not only has the Bill not been enacted, it hasn’t even been formally introduced into the Scottish parliament – it hasn’t been debated by the Scottish parliament, it hasn’t been amended by the Scottish parliament, we haven’t had stage one or stage two or stage three.”

Prof Tomkins said the lord advocate, Dorothy Bain KC, was asking the court to rule on “a hypothetical”. – PA