Brexit ruling angers Scotland

THE Supreme Court’s Brexit ruling has hit pro-EU Scotland hard by denying it the legal right to have a say on leaving the bloc and pushing it further towards making a new bid for independence.

The court ruled on Tuesday that British Prime Minister Theresa May had to seek approval from parliament to start the divorce process but did not need the support of politicians from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reacted angrily to the judgment, saying Scotland was not being heard, but political analysts say the path to a new independence referendum is far from easy.

“Is Scotland content for our future to be dictated by an increasingly right-wing Westminster government . . . or is it better that we take our future into our own hands?” the leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) said.

“It is becoming ever clearer that this a choice Scotland must make.”

Sturgeon held back for months from pushing for independence despite the June referendum in which a majority in Scotland voted to remain part of the EU although overall 52% of Britons voted to leave.

Aggravatingly for semi-autonomous Scotland, the Supreme Court ruling spelled out that a convention under which Scotland cannot have legislation foisted on it by the national government was not legally binding.

It clears the way for London to trigger the Brexit process within weeks without Scotland’s consent even as Sturgeon demands a special status that would allow it to stay in the EU’s single market while the rest of Britain leaves.

‘What happens when a constitutional convention is violated is you get a constitutional crisis,” the Economic and Social Research Council's Centre on Constitutional Change director, Professor Michael Keating, said.

An independence referendum in 2014 resulted in a 55% majority in favour of staying part of Britain and opinion polls show a majority of Scots still want to stay.

Sturgeon would also need the go-ahead from the British parliament in London to hold a new independence vote.

The British government’s top representative in Scotland, David Mundell, underlined the importance of staying part of Britain for trade opportunities.

“If Scotland pulls out of the British union to remain in the European single market, it could face trade barriers with its closest neighbours if the EU imposes punitive measures on Brexit Britain.” But bitterness in Scotland is rising fast. In the run-up to the 2014 referendum, Scotland was offered extensive new powers in exchange for voting against independence with a joint statement by national political leaders dubbed “The Vow”.

A key pillar of the British promise was a legal clause declaring that London would not normally force laws on Scotland.

Sturgeon’s Brexit negotiator Mike Russell said the Supreme Court ruling exposed the devolution settlement as meaningless and worthless.

The Scottish people overwhelmingly rejected Brexit by 62%.