Chamber and committees

As he is on the screen, I will go to Professor Renwick.

Unlike yours, Neil, which was pure—[Laughter.]

I do not disagree about ensuring that a referendum is fair and I accept the points about the process leading up to it. However, there is little point in doing that unless you are going to have a referendum, and that is the point that we are stuck at.

On Professor Renwick’s point, empirically the evidence does not support his statement that Scotland is not being treated differently. It was treated differently in 1979, and even in 1997, as asking a second question was a very different mechanism in a referendum. Secondly, we are treating Scotland differently just now by talking about maybe having a coincidental referendum for part of Scotland at the same time, or imposing something like the settled will or a supermajority, or all these different conditions that would apply—none of that was involved in the Brexit referendum. It is fine to say that we should learn from the mess that was the Brexit referendum, but the point that I was trying to make was about the way in which the state is perceived to treat different parts of the UK differently.

However, I am very grateful to the panel for the answers that they have given.

Before I come to other panel members, I have another question. There seems to be no prospect of what you described—of Westminster saying that there have been continual elections that have produced pro-independence or pro-referendum majorities and recognising that that has any consequence at all. Do you see any political consequences from continuing to see ever-more emphatic statements of support in elections for pro-independence or pro-referendum parties? What could be the political consequences of that, if any, for the UK establishment?

This will be my second-last question—feel free to respond quite briefly, if you think that that is appropriate. I do not want to put words in the mouths of witnesses but, in last week’s evidence session, we heard essentially that the act of union was pretty much a dead letter—it is irrelevant to the discussion—yet some of the written evidence suggests that it has a bit more standing than that and that, if there was a successful vote for independence, the act would need to be repealed.

Of course, the idea that there should be a right to self-determination in part rests on the idea, rightly or wrongly, that Scotland and England voluntarily—I would question whether it was voluntary at all—entered into this act of union between two parties, so each party should have the right to end that and have a process for achieving that.

What standing does the act of union have in the debate? I ask that with the view that this will come down to the UK Government putting its finger in the air and deciding what it wants to do—that seems to be how much of the constitution works in this country. What standing does the act of union have? I will go back to Nicola McEwen.

Good morning. I proposed this inquiry, and when I did so, I posed the following question. Given that the current constitutional arrangements are said to be voluntary and democratic, what is the route or the mechanism through which Scotland could choose independence? I do not know whether we are any further forward in answering that, other than to simply say that it will happen when Westminster decides that it will happen. I am happy to be contradicted, but that seems to be where we are at, given the evidence of today’s panel and our previous panel.

I completely agree with Professor Rodger’s point—I have to call him that, because I did not catch his full name—that politics is much more the driver on this, rather than constitutional nostrums. I think that politics will be what drives it. However, am I missing something? Is there a mechanism other than saying that there will be a route when Westminster decides that it will happen?

In 1979, I tried to be a proxy for my mother’s vote in the referendum that year, but, at 17, I was too young to do that. I am just thinking about all the different conditions that have been applied. Can any of the witnesses say what is so different about Scotland?

In 1979, we had the 40 per cent rule, which was unheard of, whereby the votes of the dead counted for the status quo. We have talked about confirmatory referenda and, although I see some merit in the final shape of an independent Scotland being subject to a vote, the idea of having to say again that we want the same thing is not something that I could see happening anywhere but Scotland.

The idea has been raised that different parts of Scotland—I know that this has not been advanced by the witnesses, but it certainly was by Jamie Halcro Johnston—could vote differently at the same time. It is funny, because I did not recall such voices during the Brexit referendum, when every part of Scotland voted to stay in the EU and we were utterly disregarded. That idea did not count at that point.

Also, if this is merely a distraction, and the SNP is not serious about it, call its bluff—go for it; have the referendum. That is the best way you can kill it off.

Why is it always that we come up with these strange mechanisms or different conditions? Compare that to the Brexit referendum, when there was no white paper, no background, no conditions attached—and, on the point about a 50.1 per cent result, in the case of the Brexit referendum, the result was 52 per cent to 48 per cent but nobody is questioning its legitimacy; it was a simple majority. Why is it that such conditions seem to be talked about or brought into the equation only when we talk about Scotland? Is it simply because the Brexit referendum was one that, for his own reasons, the Prime Minister of the UK wanted and the independence referendum is a referendum that the UK does not want, or is there something specific about Scotland, which we cannot quite discern, that makes it subject to all these conditions?

This is my last question. We have an off-the-shelf agreed solution as to how this should be conducted, but it will not be agreed to by the UK Government. You made the point earlier that it is at times of relative calm that you can perhaps have more chance of an agreement. Also, I think that you very helpfully mentioned the extent to which, if you want to see a referendum, broadening it out and having a more discursive approach to it could be beneficial. Patrick Harvie and I are involved in the early stages of setting up a convention to that effect.

However, if the UK Government continues to say no up until the election, and if the election returns the majority that I certainly would hope for, there is very little chance at of getting any agreement at that stage. I can see the UK Government coming straight back and saying, “Let’s discuss the ground rules again.” The chance will have gone. It will be very similar to 2014, when it promised all sorts of things, such as enshrining the Sewel convention in law, putting the Scottish Parliament on a firm footing and making it a stronger Parliament. The exact reverse happened afterwards. Would you agree that there is very little prospect after the election of getting the kind of calm that you say is necessary to ensure agreement and it would be straight into a binary approach again?

I am sorry for referring to Professor Blick as Professor Rodger earlier—that was a name that came up on the screen. I am interested in your view on those two questions.

If I understood you correctly, the first part of your answer was about a high bar—I think that you were talking about transferring, possibly to the Scottish Parliament, the power to decide or having an agreed mechanism. Given the possibility of increasingly emphatic wins for pro-independence or pro-referendum parties in Scotland, given what may well happen in Wales shortly and given what is due to happen at some point in Northern Ireland, do you see the UK Government continuing to present such a bar in the future? Will it continue to refuse to countenance granting that high bar? If you do not see that, what would change the position?