Is the good ship Indy being run on to a sandbank to await the coming tide?

Sir, – The first minister says she is “carefully considering” the release of IndyRef2 advice. I listened to her typically tetchy but revealing interview on the radio.

At one point, she said very clearly that she had a manifesto commitment to complete preparations for a referendum in the first half of this term of the Scottish Parliament.

Obviously, that is significantly different to saying that there will be a referendum in that period. A few minutes later, she said something different, namely that there will be a referendum before the end of 2023.

The interviewer quite rightly asked her for a date and suggested that either May or September would be the traditional time for a vote and which was it to be?

No date was forthcoming and we can take it from this that there really is no commitment to doing this at all.

If you remember back to 2014, the date was in the diary over two and a half years beforehand, despite all the many preparations and significant hurdles and unknowns that had to be overcome.

That there is no date now suggests there is no plan at all and that there must be hurdles in the way that the first minister is not confident of clearing.

So, zoom out a bit to see the wider picture.

We know the Scottish

Parliament does not have the legal right to hold a referendum because the Scotland Act specifically says this. That is the main hurdle.

Then, we know that a majority of people don’t want another referendum, because they tell us this in opinion polls.

We know the current financial situation and that Scotland is diverging below the rest of the UK and that the SNP do not have answers to any of the problems associated with that.

We know the international security situation has deteriorated very quickly and their stated defence position will only make that worse.

So, it seems the strategy is to run the good ship Indy on to a sandbank and wait for a tide in the next parliament to try and refloat it somehow and the courts are the mechanism for that, as your article implies.

But what happens if the courts throw it out in a day, as they surely will? It isn’t much of a plan, hence the irritated and unconvincing interview.

The message coming out over the airwaves was clear enough for me and no doubt, many tens of thousands of others too.

You can only keep a charade on the road for so long before everybody notices.