Referendum rules must be clear

THE Scottish Government’s referendum consultation is “designed to secure maximum transparency”, in the words of SNP minister Bruce Crawford. The row over anonymous and multiple submissions to the consultation, however, will have sown the seeds of doubt in the minds of some voters.

The SNP have argued that the rules governing their consultation are identical to those surrounding the Smoking In Public Places consultation in 2004, held by the Labour/libdem government. Labour challenges this assertion.

Whether true or not, however, it is a problematic defence because this referendum consultation is not just any other consultation. This is an especially significant one, as was clear from the fanfare with which Alex Salmond launched it in January, with an international press conference in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle. It is not every Scottish Government consultation that asks voters for their views on an independence referendum, what Mr Salmond has called “the most important decision by the people of Scotland in 300 years”.

The First Minister has made clear that he will use the results of the consultation, among other things, to decide the highly contentious issue of whether to back a single question or two questions. With such high stakes, it is essential not only that the consultation is in line with Scottish Government rules and precedents, but that the whole process is seen as being above reproach and free of attempts to slant it in any way. Even if anonymous submissions have been accepted in previous Scottish Government consultations – and many will consider the practice wrong in any circumstance – the acceptance of them in this consultation would risk undermining the credibility of the process.

The Government’s claim that responses can be verified for authenticity by checking for “duplicates” may not reassure doubters. Would that mean, for instance, that someone making multiple submissions but altering their language each time could get around such checks?

It is not just SNP supporters, of course, who could potentially go online and seek to make more than one submission; all parties try and use the internet to their own ends. The SNP have hit back at Labour, raising suspicions that half of the 3000 submissions to the UK Government’s consultation were in fact from the Labour Party.

Any internet survey is open to abuse, from polls on the top sportsman of all time to the nation’s favourite soap stars. That, however, is not a reason to leave the door open to those who would seek unfairly to influence the results.

The worry here is not just for those parties who support Scotland remaining in the UK; it is also for the SNP itself. What will concern many SNP supporters is the warning of Conservative deputy leader Jackson Carlaw, that if anonymous submissions are allowed, voters will consider that no assertions made by the SNP on the back of the consultation “deserve to be taken seriously”. That would indeed be a blow to the process.

It is essential that Scots have complete confidence in the referendum process; it must be seen as adhering to the highest standards of objectivity and transparency. The SNP Government must consider how it answers voters who question whether it does.