THERE is not enough time to legislate for, prepare for, and hold an independence referendum before the end of 2023 despite Scottish Government promises, the man behind the “People’s Action on Section 30” court case has claimed.
Martin Keatings organised a crowdfunder which led to some 11,000 people donating more than £155,000 to have the courts answer whether or not Scotland’s Parliament had the power to legislate to hold an independence referendum.
Keatings said the question had been “festering” for two decades while opposing political parties used it “as a stick to beat each other with”.
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While the constitution is reserved to Westminster, secret documents from the 1990s revealed officials thought Holyrood could hold “referendums on anything it wants”, even if it lacked the powers to enact the result.
Keatings (below) set out to have the question answered by the courts. However, he said: “The UK Government pretty much sat back … It was the Scottish Government that resisted the case from start to finish.”
Nicola Sturgeon’s government has made clear its intent to lay a bill before Holyrood legislating for a second referendum, but said it will only do so after May’s local elections.
The Edinburgh government has further made clear its intent to fight the UK Government in the courts for the right to hold indyref2, should that bill be challenged.
However, Keatings said that the case he had brought could have sent the SNP into negotiations around a second referendum “armed to the teeth”.
“We tried to hand the Scottish Government a shotgun, and they used it to blow their own toes off,” he said.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon hints at indyref2 court arguments amid Northern Ireland shambles
The court case brought by Keatings was ultimately thrown out as there was no more than a draft bill from Holyrood and so nothing substantial for the courts to rule on.
The activist claimed that without a ruling on whether a bill would be competent already in place, it is highly unlikely that indyref2 will happen on the Scottish Government’s stated timescale.
He said: “Let’s say the UK Government only challenges it [in the Supreme Court] once, that’s going to be at least a year while all that works itself out. Then you’ve got at least another six months on top of that for putting through the appropriate bills at Holyrood for the question, the franchise, all that sort of stuff. Then you’ve got another six months for putting all the resources together to hold a referendum. Then obviously you’ve got to allow time for campaigning.
“So it does not matter what happens now, there will almost certainly not be a referendum by the end of 2023.”
The First Minister said in January that she would do everything in her power to hold a vote before the end of next year, emphasising in March that her position had not changed in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
She told LBC: “We, right now, should be reminded, above all else, how lucky we are to live in a free democracy where we can put forward our case for political constitutional change, argue that case passionately, whatever our views on that might be, and trust people to decide.”
However, Keatings warned that if the Scottish Government passed an indyref2 bill, the Westminster government would have plenty of time to change the law to ensure that it was deemed incompetent by the Supreme Court.
READ MORE: How losing indyref2 court battle could help Scotland win independence
Keatings further thanked his legal team, from Glasgow-based Balfour and Manson and also Aidan O'Neill QC, for waiving a portion of their fees and allowing him to avoid “financial destitution”.
The ruling against him had meant Keatings was saddled with paying the UK and Scottish Governments’ legal fees He told The National: “The costs involved in something like this can barrel into hundreds of thousands of pounds. But to their credit our lawyers have actually eaten a lot of their own expenses. That then has freed up a large chunk of the funding which can be split between the two governments.
“Because I was the named individual I was facing complete and utter financial destitution at the hands of the Scottish and UK Governments, for simply daring to ask if Scotland has the power [to hold an independence referendum].”
The Scottish Government has been approached for comment.
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