Well, this won’t take long.
The First Minister’s speech to Parliament today contained a single useful and practical step: by aiming to pass the legislation required to conduct a second independence referendum by the end of this year, Scotland will be well prepared in the event that such a vote somehow becomes a reality.
On how to make it become a reality, there was nothing.
The FM’s plan appears to be to keep appealing to the UK government’s sense of reason and decency (stop sniggering at the back) in the hope that one more time will work where the last 200 attempts failed.
She also plans to initiate a Citizen’s Assembly, in which a bunch of people elected by nobody (but whose identities we can probably make an educated guess at) will sit around and talk and the outcome will presumably be used to appeal to the UK government’s sense of reason and decency etc.
The meaningful effect of this will be zero. If events conspire in such a way that the SNP can extract a second indyref as the price of supporting a Jeremy Corbyn government (which is unlikely on several levels, but not impossible as the Tories are currently imploding at speed since failing to deliver Brexit again), there’ll be one no matter what stage the Citizens’ Assembly is at. If they don’t, there won’t.
The speech was a stalling exercise designed to appease the SNP membership and Yes movement by not explicitly putting a second referendum beyond 2021, in the hope that something (like the aforementioned general election) happens to change the deadlock by which the UK government can just say “No” indefinitely.
No steps were announced to resolve the question of whether Holyrood has the legal power under the Scotland Act to conduct an indyref or not.
As such, any attempt to hold a “wildcat” one would fail, as Unionist-controlled councils would simply refuse to cooperate. Were it to be attempted in, say, June 2020, any legal wrangling over the issue would certainly extend well beyond the current Scottish Government’s electoral and parliamentary mandate.
In short, nothing changed today. The SNP is still frozen in headlights, hoping for some sort of deliverance to show up from an external source. It still clings to the belief that reason alone can win the day.
“I have in my hand the findings of the Citizens’ Assembly!”
.
The evidence is that that is not the case. Theresa May does not appear to be the sort of person who changes her mind readily in response to logic. Ironically, the best hope for Scottish independence may now be Nigel Farage.
