This content was published on October 11, 2022 – 6:23 am
(AFP)
The British Supreme Court began on Tuesday to analyze the legality of the independence project in Scotland, whose regional government intends to hold a second self-determination referendum next year despite opposition from London.
Five judges, led by Chief Justice Robert Reed, began two days of hearings in London by hearing arguments from Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, legal representative of the Scottish self-government executive.
“It is the policy of the Scottish government to hold a legal referendum,” said Bain.
The Scottish National Party (SNP), led by Nicola Sturgeon, who rules this British nation of 5.5 million people, wants to organize an advisory vote on the question “Should Scotland be an independent country?”
Scotland already held a sovereign referendum in 2014, in which 55% voted to remain in the UK.
However, on that occasion he had the agreement of the British Conservative government of David Cameron, unlike now, which is clashing with the opposition of Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Like his predecessor Boris Johnson, Truss argues that such questions can only be allowed “once in a generation”.
On Tuesday, British incumbent for Scotland, Alister Jack, reiterated to the government that “the Scottish people want their governments to work together on issues that concern them, rather than focus on another referendum,” a spokesperson told reporters. by Truss.
In 2014, the main argument against secession was that he would leave Scotland outside the European Union.
But paradoxically, two years after the Brexit referendum – against which 62% of Scots voted – it ended up removing the region from the blockade precisely because it remained in the UK.
Claiming that this has completely changed the situation, Sturgeon plans a new call for which he has already set a date: October 19, 2023.
And given the refusal of London, which dominates the national parliament in Westminster, it wants to do so under the cover of a law passed to this end by the Scottish regional chamber.
The judges of the country’s highest jurisdiction must determine precisely whether Scotland has the capacity to legislate on the matter.
“If Westminster had respect for Scottish democracy, this court hearing would not be necessary,” Sturgeon launched Monday at the SNP congress.
– “Legitimate, sovereign right” –
The SNP won the 2021 legislative elections with a promise to hold a legal consultation on independence once the covid-19 pandemic ended.
Polls show that Scots are almost equally divided in favor of and against leaving the UK, mainly out of a desire to rejoin the EU.
The regional government claims to have a legal framework that authorizes such a vote.
“No prime minister, no government in London can undermine the legitimate right, the sovereign right, of the Scottish people to have a say in their own future,” SNP leader in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio.
But the British executive defends, as happened in Spain in 2017 with the Catalan independence project, that Scotland cannot act unilaterally in an issue that affects the entire country.
To avoid a major conflict, Scottish nationalists promise to organize a purely consultative vote.
However, many in London, including the conservative newspaper The Times, describe it as a “legal trick” as if a vote were imposed on independence, Westminster would be under severe pressure to authorize it.
The hearings will last until Wednesday, but the sentence will take “a few months,” Reed said on Tuesday.
And if justice does not prove him right, the SNP plans to transform the next regional legislative elections, scheduled for 2024, into a de facto plebiscite, campaigning on a single issue, repeating the scheme devised by supporters of Catalan independence in 2015. in Spain.
