How should Pro UK people in Scotland respond to
threats from the SNP to hold an independence referendum without permission or
to use the upcoming Scottish Parliament elections as a proxy referendum on
independence leading to a unilateral declaration of independence? The answer as
always is to do what your opponent least wants.
I have been disappointed in Douglas Ross since he
became Scottish Conservative leader, but his recent statement that Pro UK
parties should boycott an unofficial referendum is correct. I am and will
always be a Conservative. I support Boris Johnson and if Mr Ross begins to
stand up to Scottish nationalism in this sort of way, I will support him. This
is what Pro UK people have been waiting for.
I will always remember how after Remain lost the 2016
referendum, we suddenly discovered that the referendum was merely advisory and
could be ignored by Westminster. Nothing at all had been said about this during
the campaign. But we later learned that the decision to leave the EU was
ultimately up to Westminster. In that case it rather makes referendums
pointless. They become just large and expensive opinion polls. But if the
result of a legally organised referendum can be ignored how much more can that
of an illegal referendum?
There is only one way for Scotland to become legally
independent. It is not by means of a referendum. Even if Yes had won the
referendum in 2014, Scotland would have remained part of the United Kingdom
until a vote in Westminster that repealed the Act of Union 1707. We now know
that Westminster could have treated a Yes win as merely advisory. So too now
and more so if that win were in an illegal referendum. The advice could be
ignored.
Let’s imagine the SNP wins a majority at Holyrood and
afterwards asks for permission to hold a second referendum and Boris Johnson
refuses. If the SNP tried to organise a referendum anyway this would be
contrary to the Scotland Act which makes constitutional matters reserved. It
would be contrary too to the mandate from the referendum vote in 1997 that set
up a devolved Scottish Parliament. It would therefore be undemocratic.
How should Pro UK people respond to an illegal and
undemocratic referendum? We should ignore it. If all of the Pro UK parties in
Scotland chose not to take part and advised their supporters not to vote, the
result of the referendum would have no legitimacy at all.
An illegal referendum could not have the involvement
of the Electoral Commission. The SNP would therefore have to set the question.
But the precedent of the 2016 referendum shows that a Yes/No question is unfair
to No. For this reason, it would be expected that the Electoral Commission
would come up with a different question in a second independence referendum. If
the SNP instead repeated the question from 2014, that in itself would make the
result illegitimate.
The campaign would have no involvement from Pro UK
parties or people. There would not be any organisation or person to take part
in debates. There would be no official reports or statements from the UK
Government putting the counter argument. The Scottish electorate would have no
idea how the UK Government would respond to Scottish independence. There would
only be SNP statements about how wonderful independence would be. There would
be no counter arguments nor indeed any real knowledge tested by argument and
counterargument.
In that case how could the Scottish electorate make an
informed decision when they would only hear one side of the argument? This in
itself would make the result of such a referendum illegitimate.
No one employed by the UK Government would be involved
in organising the SNP’s illegal referendum. The UK Government could treat such
involvement as grounds for dismissal. So, it is unclear who would count the
ballot papers and fairly assess who had won.
A complete boycott by Pro UK parties and people would
lead to the SNP winning more than ninety percent on a low turnout. But what
would that prove? Nothing at all.
Even if the SNP were able to win half of the
electorate including those who did not vote, they still would not be able to
declare that the result had been legitimate, because the referendum would
remain illegal and it would not have been carried out according to democratic
norms with both sides taking part in the campaign and with arguments from all
sides heard.
The BBC and other broadcasters could be made to treat
any illegal referendum as worthy of only minimal coverage. Broadcasting (and
ultimately its funding) is reserved to Westminster. So, there would be none of
the usual coverage of the campaign or the result. It would be contrary to the duty
of impartiality to cover only one side of the argument.
If Westminster can ignore even the result of a
legitimate referendum organised according to the democratic norms and with a
high turnout, how much more could it simply ignore a referendum with a low
turnout where only one side took part. This would go nowhere for the SNP.
But the same argument obviously applies if the SNP
went down the route of attempting to use the election to the Scottish
Parliament as a vote for independence. In that case also it would be logical
for Pro UK people and parties to boycott that election. I suspect selfish
reasons might prevent Pro UK MSPs from taking this step. They would lose their
jobs. But do they prefer to keep their job or their country?
If Scottish Parliamentary elections and the Scottish
Parliament itself are to be used for Scotland to illegally hold a referendum or
to illegally secede from the United Kingdom, then both the election and the
Scottish Parliament would be outside democratic norms and would cease to have
the legitimacy given to them by the vote in 1997.
Imagine if the SNP and other independence parties won
all of the seats at Holyrood. Far from giving them absolute power, it would
lead to them having no power at all. The response to such a parliament would be
to repeal the Scotland Act and to end devolution in Scotland.
The SNP requires the consent and the cooperation of
Pro UK people to achieve Scottish independence. Without it Scotland would lack
the unity and common purpose necessary to achieve independence. Unless Pro UK
people at least acquiesce and agree that the SNP has achieved its goal
democratically, legally and fairly, there could be no successful independent
Scotland, but rather a hopelessly divided failure stillborn because its only
parent was Scottish nationalism.
I would have consented and cooperated if the SNP had
won in 2014. I would have accepted the majority view, but I would withdraw my
consent and would do all I could to thwart an attempt to achieve independence
illegally, because once you start down the illegal undemocratic route tyranny
follows soon after.
The correct response therefore to any illegality on
the part of the SNP is to do what the SNP does not want us to do. Our failure
to cooperate with SNP plans, by refusing to take part, by boycotting, by not
voting and by ignoring, makes any unilateral attempt to achieve independence
lack the legitimacy that independence supporters want and require. If you go
down the illegal route, we won’t work with you and you will fail.
