Davidson welcomes ‘unanimity and clarity’ in unsurprising ruling
Former Scottish Conservative leader Baroness Davidson said the Supreme Court ruling was not a surprise and she welcomed its "unanimity" and "clarity".
She added on Twitter: "No doubt the SNP will try to leverage this ruling for further grievance. If only the huge effort, capacity & resource spent bidding to rerun the original vote had been put into health, education & the economy."
But former first minister Alex Salmond, who led the Scottish Government into the 2014 independence referendum, hit out at the decision to refer the case to the Supreme Court in the first place, insisting the Scottish Parliament should have instead forced theuk governmentto challenge the indy ref 2 legislation.
He said: "The decision of the Supreme Court is the result of a bad gamble that hasn't paid off. The Scottish Parliament should have passed the legislation for an independence referendum and forced the UK Government to be the ones that challenged it.
"Real parliaments don't ask for permission to implement their democratic mandate. Although the verdict is hardly a surprise it now begs the question of what is the democratic route for Scots to determine their own future?
"Unionists should beware in their glee as the lesson of history is that you can postpone democracy, but you cannot deny it.
"The Scottish Government now has the responsibility to find away forward. they have led the national movement down a complete blind alley to the Supreme Court which astonishingly has gone as far as rejecting scotland's right of self-determination.
"That's what happens when you go to the wrong court with the wrong question."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-hamilton said the court's verdict was an "embarrassing defeat" for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
He said: "Scores of legal experts warned that the law is clear and that this case was a complete waste of Supreme Court time and taxpayers' money, but the Scottish Government would not listen. "It has been a terrible use of funds at a time when every penny should be squeezed to help people through the costof-living crisis. Breaking up the UK simply isn't a priority for people opening their bills with dread or struggling to get the treatment they need.”