Sturgeon accused of cover-up over referendum consultation

TOM GORDON

vote. The analysis admitted “the main theme” of unsolicited comments was “the principle of holding another referendum on Scottish independence”.

But it added: “It was not within the scope of this project to conduct an analysis of these comments”.

The analysis reported concerns about electoral fraud, especially postal votes; support for expat Scots to have a vote; and opposition to public money going on a referendum.

The consultation received 7,198 valid responses, of which 6,806 were published on the Scottish Government website yesterday as MSPs left for the summer recess.

The consultation, which pre-dated the proposal for a referendum by spring 2019, attracted many positive responses, but also a number of sharply critical ones.

Examples included:

The replies were released yesterday as Holyrood went into recess.

“This is a complete waste of public money that we can ill afford”, “The country voted No the last time” and “We’ve had our once in a lifetime vote!”

The First Minister ordered civil servants to start work on the bill the day after the UK voted 52-48 to leave the UK, while Scotland

62-38 to Remain.

It was published for a three-month consultation in October. On Tuesday, in light of the SNP losing a third of its seats at the General Election, Ms Sturgeon announced she was shelving the bill until at least autumn 2018.

She said once the terms of Brexit were clear, she would set out a “precise timescale” for holding a new vote, probably before the 2021 Holyrood election.

The delay means a referendum now cannot take place until spring 2020 at the earliest – and only then if the UK Government gives Holyrood extra powers it has

voted so far refused to transfer. Labour MSP James Kelly said: “Publishing consultation responses to the SNP plan on the last day before recess is a classic Nationalist tactic.

“It’s clearly in the public interest to show how much opposition there was to this plan.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “No matter how much the First Minister might want to believe otherwise, the election made this largely redundant.”

In its response, the Scottish Government said there was a “strong degree of support” for the bill as drafted, but said ministers would “take due account”