GIVEN last week’s Supreme Court judgment, it’s not hard to see why Scotland is angry.

It’s not just this latest “No, you can’t have what you voted for” decree; a cool look at recent history shows how far we have been sidelined.

The Scottish people last chose a UK Tory government in 1955. Of the 67 years since, the Conservatives have ruled at Westminster for 43. At Holyrood, the Scottish Tories are the one main party never to have held power.

Scotland voted against Brexit and efforts to soften it have been ignored. All four Scottish elections since 2007 – under proportional representation – have been won by the SNP, the most recent producing a clear majority of MSPs who support a second referendum. But it’s trickier to know what our best way forward should be. Is it by persuading an overwhelming majority to vote in a plebiscite election – a would-be referendum – for pro-independence parties, so that Scotland’s will can no longer be spurned?

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Last week’s rallies, though fair expression against legal confirmation of Westminster’s disdain, don’t seem likely to turn things round. Let’s remember that demos, protests, rallies and marches hardly featured during indyref1. The emphasis was on campaigning at local level, mass canvassing, meetings, street stalls and discussion.

Later, pre-pandemic, All Under One Banner organised regular huge marches to keep the Yes momentum and morale going. But the converted waving Saltires at each other is not going to cut through. An even gentler, more understanding approach than 2014 may be called for, as the undecided are given every opportunity to find their voice.

The obvious difference now is that the vote, in whatever form it comes, is no longer consensual. David Cameron and Alex Salmond signing the Edinburgh Agreement under Section 30 of the Scotland Act in 2012 feels like a generation ago.

The tone last time was set by an unfailingly positive Yes campaign, promising a better Scotland, versus a Project Fear No campaign. And Yes lost.

Now the process is likely to take place in an atmosphere of greater hostility. There are also practical difficulties in trying to make the 2024 General Election a would-be referendum.

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Ideas about Scotland’s status risk being marginalised in the contest between the main parties in England, by Unionist parties in Scotland and probably by the media as well. Labour may have its best chance in years to win at Westminster; some SNP voters may shift allegiance.

What’s more, TV debates often exclude Scottish voices. The Tories further threaten democracy with their plans for voter ID – likely to disenfranchise younger voters – and exclusion of 16-17-year-olds and EU citizens.

The SNP can be a formidable election machine, getting out the vote with great efficiency. But in a plebiscite election, especially if the Unionists don’t accept it it as such, there’s bound to be dispute over what constitutes a majority – votes or seats?

Scotland’s situation seems, still, to be ambiguous. In short, we’re in a guddle. It may be as nothing compared to the permacrisis facing the UK as a whole, but for Scotland, the way ahead seems as ambiguous as it did before Lord Reed made his “clear and definitive” pronouncement.

Paul Bassett
Glasgow

WE see on the news uprisings against authoritarian governments no different to the corrupt Westminster dictatorship we have to endure here in Sovereign Scotland. Does make you think what can be achieved.

If you want proof of the dictatorship I speak of, you just have to take cognisance of the laws they have changed in parliament to avoid scrutiny.

Ken McCartney
Hawick