UNANIMOUS. DAMNING. AND A FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF INDYREF2

THE Supreme Court’s speedy, unanimous and stark judgment yesterday has killed the Nationalists’ dream of a second independence referendum. Indyref 2 is not going to happen. Not next year. Not before the next UK general election. And, in all probability, not thereafter either.

The court surprised everyone with the boldness and outspokenness of its judgment. Lawyers on both sides were expecting the Scottish Government to lose, but not like this. The expectation was that the Supreme Court would rule that the Lord Advocate’s application had been made prematurely – that the time for the court to assess the competence of Holyrood legislation would be after it had been enacted, not before it has been introduced.

As such, everyone was anticipating that yesterday’s judgment would be something of a damp squib, leaving the real fireworks for much later. But no!

For me, the principal lesson of yesterday’s judgment is never to try to predict the Supreme Court. The court did the opposite of what was expected: it accepted that the Lord Advocate’s reference had been properly made, and it went on to rule, in uncompromising terms, that the Scottish parliament has no legislative competence to enact a law paving the way for a second independence referendum.

FOR this to happen lawfully – as it did in 2014 – Westminster would need to indicate its consent by altering the terms of the Scotland Act. This, as we all know, is not going to happen. Already, the Nationalists are bleating that this means the United Kingdom is not the voluntary union it proclaims to be. They could not be more wrong.

There is one reason why Scotland has not left the UK to become an independent state: because there is no clear and constant majority in Scotland for that to happen. It has been established since Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister that, were it to be the settled will of the Scottish people to leave the United Kingdom, the UK state would not stand in Scotland’s way.

There will be no repeat referendum on independence because now is not the time. And why is now not the time? Because there is no clear and constant majority in Scotland for another referendum.

Neither a second referendum, nor indeed independence itself, is the settled will of the Scottish people. Neither will happen unless and until that changes.

To her credit, Nicola Sturgeon recognised much of this in her statement following the court’s ruling yesterday. In particular, she acknowledged that she, her party and the broader movement she leads ‘have work to do’.

That work, of course, is to seek to persuade a majority of Scots that our national future lies outside and not within the UK. She was right to recognise that, despite yesterday’s court ruling, there remains a lawful, constitutional and democratic path for independence, for those who wish to pursue it.

That path is persuasion. The means of persuasion are through the processes of democratic politics. And its success – or otherwise – will be measured in terms of electoral results.

For those of us who are opposed to the Nationalists’ project of separating Scotland from the rest of Britain, our means are the same. For all that the law, the Supreme Court and its justices took centre-stage yesterday, this is and always has been primarily a political fight. Thus far, both sides have committed to take part in that fight in a manner that adheres to and respects the rule of law.

SCOTLAND’S constitutional future should be determined peacefully, in the ballot box, not violently on the streets. Those of us who oppose the Scottish Government must accept it has a political and electoral mandate to pursue independence.

Likewise, the SNP and the broader Yes movement must accept that their mandate must be implemented within and subject to the law.

Governments committed to the rule of law cannot do whatever they want: they can do only that which they have the legal power to do.

Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling does not mean the Scottish Government may not continue to prosecute its case for independence, should it wish to do so. It means simply the vehicle for one day deciding the question of independence cannot be a go-it-alone referendum to which the UK Parliament does not consent.

Indyref 2 is dead in the water. But the Nationalists will never give up until they are well and truly beaten in the ballot box.

Those of us who long for the day the Scottish Government focuses on schools, jobs and hospitals, instead of its constitutional obsession, have our work cut out. Unless and until we beat them in the ballot box they will never stop, no matter what the Supreme Court says.

‘The Nationalists will never give up until they are beaten in the ballot box’