And so the pettiness begins

Welcome to the great nit pick, the hairsplitting marathon which may or may not end up in a second independence referendum.

Much as the 100 years war was not 100 years in length and the Opium Wars with China were not really about opium, so the decade of independence campaigning under the SNP government has not really been about independence.

Since 2007 the Scottish Government has spent 99% of all constitutional effort on arguing about process and 1% on what independence would actually mean. And so it is again. On Monday Nicola Sturgeon declared the game was on for Indyref2 and on Tuesday she was complaining about the rules.

The FM wants another vote to be “made in Scotland”.

The last referendum was indeed made in Scotland but insisting that another also be entirely in the gift of the losing side from 2014 is going to be a bit of a push.

I can’t whip up enthusiasm on this point for the simple reason that making the process “in Scotland” has zero to do with the actual proposition.

We will not be voting on where and how the referendum process was constructed, we will be voting on the future of our economy, society and safety.

Nicola Sturgeon did not choose to tell us anything about that future this week – just went straight into process wrangles. It may excite you – Dundee, Fife and Perthshire are all SNP places and the thought of another round of “she said this, she said that, it’s not fair, your mandate is less than mine” may be the meat in your daily political diet – but I doubt its going to grip the nation.

Which means the next months and possibly years are going to be quite trying, because both sides are hunkering down for a long exchange of pettiness.

Downing Street is unlikely to say No to Nicola’s request – too blunt and arrogant in appearance.

Instead, it will begin a protracted conversation about details.

The first salvo might be to ask the Scottish Government on what grounds it claims that Scotland could stay in the EU.

The Scottish Government’s own advice is crystal clear – An Independent Scotland would become a new state and would have to reapply for membership. This was stated in black and white by its own advisers in 2012.

Nothing has since been said which changes this.

Which is not to say there haven’t been positive noises about Scotland being welcome in the EU, or how it already meets the membership requirements or to definitely say it would take a long time (contrary to Spain’s opinion, there is no queue, just a bunch of applicants moving at different speeds).

May raised this point at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday and got no answer.

Then she could ask what question the Scottish Government proposes, thus teasing out whether EU membership is actually part of the referendum.

If the Scottish Government ducks joining the EU – its probably not flavour of the month among voters – then it rather blows a hole in its claim that Indyref2 is about Europe.

Next up, Downing Street could ask to see a prospectus – what is the Scottish Government offering to the people.

That is not an unreasonable request, given a majority of Scots rejected the last offering – and still oppose independence, according to most opinion polls.

None of the above is a rejection, just a clarification and none of it antidemocratic or a thwarting of anyone’s will apart from Nicola’s.

If Theresa May really wants to raise a smile, albeit an ironic one, she would cite the Brexit referendum as proof that people need clarity before such significant votes.

Control

In return, the First Minister will expand on her “made in Scotland” request – she’ll want to control the wording of the question, the authorship and timing of the White Paper and the timing of the vote itself.

The success of this glacially-slow ping pong of insults and pedantry partly depends on you and I. If we get worked up about it all, then Sturgeon will have succeeded in building anger where there was none.

If instead we get turned off, then it’s victory to May.

My feeling is that Scots do not ever want to be told they are not in control of their democratic destiny – if we want a vote, we’ll have one.

However, we are not that animated by the idea of a rushed referendum when everything is so chaotic elsewhere.

Sturgeon is repeating the same process that occurred between 2011 and the signing of the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012.

Then, she had novelty and first-flush enthusiasm on her side.

This time it’s going to be lot harder to inject a sense of urgent necessity into the proceedings.

That is where the EU membership question matters – if the Scottish Government can’t explain why the referendum must happen while the UK is still in the EU, then there is no reason for Indyref2 to be held before spring of 2019.

So indy supporters have to hope she has a clever, new answer to that question.

Welcome to the great nit pick, the hairsplitting marathon

Picture: Getty Images. There may not be too much giving way as the negotiations begin over a second independence referendum.