NOW that Nicola Sturgeon has made clear the Scottish Government’s view on the independence campaign, it is now up to the wider Yes movement to carry the campaign forward.
Unless I am missing something, the way forward looks pretty simple to me and easy to understand. Nicola says the campaign must be conducted within legal principles. Well, that seems clear provided we understand what legal principles are being applied at what stage of the campaign. Is it UK law as created by the Westminster parliament? Or is it international law? Now I am no lawyer, but Nicola is, so I am assuming she means we should comply with both.
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It is important that we are quite clear about this, because the law as applied by the UK Supreme Court will be based on the English and Westminster conception that “sovereignty” rests with the “Queen in Parliament”, while in international law the concept of sovereignty would be much wider and would be closer to the Scottish conception that sovereignty rests with the people of Scotland.
But I’m sure Nicola is clear about that, which I think means that we should use the Westminster legal formation – including their very out-date view on sovereignty – while operating within the UK structures, but applying Scottish concepts of sovereignty once we have voted for independence.
If that is what Nicola means then we have clearly met and complied with the first Westminster legal obligation. The Scottish Government has twice formally requested the co-operation of the UK Government in a Section 30 arrangement. That has been refused on both occasions. It has sought a judgement from the Supreme Court, which the UK Government has unsuccessfully attempted to have thrown out. This judgement, when it comes, is very likely to be that the Scottish Government has no authority to hold a referendum on this subject which is a reserved matter. The Supreme Court will not even consider Scottish people’s international rights, just the powers of the Scottish Government under devolution.
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This leaves us with the only option open to us under Westminster law. We can use the next General Election, which must take place before December 2024 at the very latest, to give the Scottish people their right, in international law, to express their view on political and economic independence.
It is now glaringly obvious to all of us that we will need to use the General Election to secure this international right. Now some Yes supporters are disappointed with this situation and some seem confused about what it means. However, I am pleased with the current situation and see this as a great opportunity for us to have our independence within a very short time.
We will be obliged to put up with difficulties in complying with UK laws in this way, One big handicap for us is that we will not be able to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote when we know that we have high support among them for independence. We can’t allow this, however undemocratic it is, because we must comply with UK law.
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However, on the other hand, winning a majority in this system is easy – all we need is to win the highest number of Scottish seats, we then have a majority in Westminster legal terms, irrespective of the number of votes cast for the SNP, or against them, one more seat than the opposition is a majority. In1951 Labour won more votes than the Tories in the General Election, but the Tories won more seats so they took over Government. The suggestion that the SNP must win over 50% of the votes to have a majority in Scotland is incorrect, this is not required in law, so it would have no legal basis.
What is, however, absolutely required, is that having won a majority of the Scottish seats at a General Election the SNP must act on that mandate right away, in order to pursue our rights in international law.
Scottish MPs must not go to the Westminster parliament where their international rights would be ignored – that would be foolish and disrespectful to the sovereign Scottish people. The Scottish MPs must meet in Scotland and as a first act they must go back to the Treaty of Union and reaffirm that Scottish law remains separate from English law. They should reaffirm the Scottish view of sovereignty and make it clear that this was the sovereignty which applied in Scottish law. The Scottish Government should then take control of all taxation being collected in Scotland hold it until the negotiations with the UK Government begin. MPs should then create with the Scottish Government teams to work on negotiations with the UK Government.
If we are forced to use this method of voting for our international rights then we should do it and apply the law as it is currently written and applied. The SNP have won a majority of Scottish seats in the last three General Elections and if we campaign hard and united we will do it again. This time, however, we must act on the peoples’ mandate immediately and directly.
Andy Anderson
Ardrossan
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