Does Reform UK have a stronger position than Labour on a new indy ref for Scotland?

Reform may break the Unionist consensus of refusal

Beinn Eighe last week, photo Rob Bruc

Obviously, I am not a supporter of Reform but as an observer of the Scottish political scene, I think their approach to the constitutional question is worth examining.

It is not certain that this will be in the manifesto - but the deputy Scottish chair of Reform UK David Kirkwood has certainly said that the party is not opposed in principle to another referendum on Scottish independence and suggests it should be held in 2039.

Kirkwood, like several Reform UK candidates in Scotland, is a lifelong supporter of Scottish independence, and a former member of the SNP.

Kirkwood said while they would campaign for a No vote, Reform accepts the right of the Scottish people to the basic principle of self-determination, at least once in a generation. This may be one reason why the party has more independence supporters - 40% - among its voters than any other Unionist party.

Norstat poll 12/24

Reform UK poised to reap voters from both the SNP and the Unionists

Leaving a foot on either side of the constitutional divide could prove a strong strategy for Reform.

Support for independence is widespread in Scotland, among both urban progressives and social conservatives. The latter group is arguably underserved by the current political landscape in Scotland.

Alba is also looking to win votes from right-of-centre indy supporters. A poll at the weekend commissioned by the Herald suggests that both they and Reform UK will be represented in the next Holyrood Parliament, which will be elected early next year.

Ststs for Lefties graphic based on the Herald poll

Clarity from the Supreme Court - Westminster holds the power to call another indy ref

The Scottish Government under Nicola Sturgeon sought clarity from the UK Supreme Court over whether Holyrood could legally call another independence referendum. The court ruled that the Scottish Parliament doesn’t have that right, arguing that the sovereignty of the Scottish people lies with Westminster. (1)

If there is a pro-indy supermajority in the next Holyrood parliament, Westminster can thus either accede to or ignore its request for an independence referendum.

For sure, Westminster has the power to overrule Scotland’s voice. Scotland holds only 3% of seats at Westminster, 57 MPs. (The majority of members of the UK Parliament are in the House of Lords, and they mostly live in London and the southeast of England. So democratic!)

That doesn’t mean it is safe or wise for the UK Parliament to ignore Scotland’s wishes in the long term. Ever heard the phrase ‘Nemo me impune lacessit’? This refusal could end up boosting support for independence.

What is Labour offering Scotland?

At the moment, Labour UK are doing their best to pretend Scotland doesn’t exist. Look at the map of infrastructure projects that Chancellor Rachel Reeves has suggested.

That plan for the third runway at Heathrow could have been tied to support for efforts to turn Grangemouth into a hub for sustainable aviation fuel. But when Reeves was asked about that on Laura Kuenssberg’s show she started talking about carbon capture in Teesside.

Keir Starmer’s content-free ‘reset’ of relations with Europe doesn’t take account of the fact that Scotland voted to remain in the EU and most Scots want to be back there.

A petulant refusal of Scottish visas

Other policies towards Scotland such as Yvette Cooper’s recent refusal to entertain the idea of Scotland having its own immigration visas seemed petulant. Scotland clearly has different requirements than England. The salary requirements are set to suit London. Even Scottish lawyers in the first years of their careers don’t earn enough to qualify for a UK visa, let alone games developers or forestry workers.

Quebec has its own visa system - they just hand names to the Canadian equivalent of the Home Office and say - we need those people, thanks. Like Scotland, Quebec has its own tax code so someone getting a visa for that area would have trouble moving to another part of the country.

A 2039 date would be a break clause

Accepting a date of 2039 would be too far away for many in the independence movement but it offers a potential compromise. It would allow time to consider how this would work for both Scotland and the rest of the UK. (There is a precedent for a long lead in time - Denmark and Iceland agreed a 25-year break clause in their union after Home Rule was established in Iceland.)

I have spoken to England-based friends who agree that if Scotland shared the pound, defence and the Crown they would hardly notice the change.

One friend said that they would notice if Scotland were in the EU and England wasn’t - but would they? Increasingly that is the position of Northern Ireland. It has to conform to EU law and as that diverges from UK law over time the barriers down the Irish Sea grow higher.

That is not going unnoticed in Belfast - the recent extensions of the Brexit arrangements was voted through without support from the Unionist community. But how many of the articles or TV segments about the recent five-year anniversary of Brexit even mentioned Northern Ireland?

The Labour Party’s current position, which appears to be that they will not agree to another independence referendum for Scotland even if there is a supermajority for it in the next Holyrood parliament, seems out of keeping with their core values. And it is potentially a gift to Reform.

Notes

Denmark and Iceland agreed a 25 year break clause in their Union back in 1918

Quebec has many more powers than Scotland - including 24 seats in Canada’s 105-member Upper House

There is no reason Scotland can’t have its own immigration visas

The trade barriers in the Irish Sea are getting higher

(1)In a famous judgement, Lord Cooper disputed that the Scottish Parliament was simply absorbed by Westminster - this is from the SNP’s submission to the Supreme Court in the indy ref case.

The Scottish constitutional tradition as distinct from the English equivalent is set out famously – and most succinctly – by Lord President Cooper in MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953:

‘The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law. It derives its origin from Coke and Blackstone, and was widely popularised during the nineteenth century by Bagehot and Dicey, the latter having stated the doctrine in its classic form in his Law of the Constitution. Considering that the Union legislation extinguished the Parliaments of Scotland and England and replaced them by a new Parliament, I have difficulty in seeing why it should have been supposed that the new Parliament of Great Britain must inherit all the peculiar characteristics of the English Parliament but none of the Scottish Parliament, as if all that happened in 1707 was that Scottish representatives were admitted to the Parliament of England. That is not what was done.’

The Scottish constitutional tradition does not subscribe to the form of ‘sovereignty of Parliament’ described by Diceyan theory as the despotism of the King in Parliament.