Sturgeon's legal gamble is unlikely to secure indyref2

Nicola Sturgeon is a brilliant politician, possibly the best in the UK, but even she cannot conceal the weakness of her position. Yesterday, she unveiled with great fanfare her plan to hold a legal second independence referendum, on 19 October 2023: her plan is to ask the UK Supreme Court if she is allowed to.

- JOHN RENTOUL

The answer to that ought to be no, as the law on devolution was crystal clear: the Scottish parliament could hold a referendum on independence only with the agreement of the UK government.

Still, the law can be unpredictable, and there must be a chance that the Supreme Court will rule in her favour. It is not clear what the legal arguments for that would be, and they certainly weren't spelt out in Sturgeon's statement. She tried to pretend that because it would be a consultative referendum (rather than a "self-executing" one), the court might agree to it. But then she gave the game away by admitting that the referendums of 1997 (devolution), 2014 (independence) and 2016 (Brexit, UK-wide) were consultative too.

And she admitted that "legislation would have to be passed by the UK and Scottish parliaments", so even if a consultative referendum might be within the power of the Scottish parliament, the subsequent legislation might not be.