The Not-so-Supreme Court confirms it isn't Supreme and Parliament is

Supreme Court rules this morning that the Scottish Government does not have the right to hold a referendum without consent... confirming what we already knew.

Earlier this morning a lengthy legal battle was ended between His Majesty’s Britannic Government and the devolved Scottish Government. At 9.45am, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, headed by Scottish justice Lord Reed, confirmed what we all already knew but what apparently First Minister Nicola Sturgeon didn’t - that Parliament is sovereign and it alone has the ultimate authority and sole power to grant a Section 30 order of the Scotland Act (1998).

This was all evident to anyone with a basic grasp of British constitutional politics of course, both by simply recalling the basic truth that Parliament is Sovereign as well as reading the Scotland Act (1998) which is why we didn’t need the wrongly named ‘Supreme’ Court to tell us this.

Of course, this won’t dent Nicola Sturgeon or her band of merry men in kilts from pursuing their goal of Scottish independence, despite having been resoundingly told ‘No’ 8 years ago by the Scottish part of the electorate - well, apart from the Scots living elsewhere in the kingdom who she barred from voting in an attempt to gerrymander the vote.

So where now? Now that she’s led her supporters up the hill of another referendum and it is the only purpose of the Scottish National Party, she will find herself with little room for manoeuvre. Embarrassingly not just for Scots, but for our kingdom as a whole, this will likely mean her Ministry attempting to hold some Catalan-style wildcat referendum over the next year or two - which will make both her and us a laughing stock on the international stage. Comparisons between the situation in Spain and Catalonia will be made by both her and her supporters, conveniently omitting the fact that she has had her referendum - on all her terms from the question to the electorate eligible to vote - and lost.

It’s amazing that for such a pro-EU party as the SNP claims to be, it seemingly lacks any knowledge of actual European constitutional politics and the reality that most countries both in Europe and around the world simply do not allow secession referendums at all. The Kingdom of Spain has an absolute bar on secession referendums in the constitution, and even the little Kingdom of Belgium - plagued by years of divide between the Flemish and the Walloons - resists attempts to put the kingdom’s very existence to a vote. The only country slightly comparable is Canada, which held two referendums (with more than an measly 8 year divide between them) on Quebec’s future - and has now rectified and clarified it’s position on any future votes that threaten to split the Dominion, essentially making them impossible going forward.

The biggest losers in all this are the ordinary Scots, who will continue to be governed by a party that has left Scotland with the worst schools in the United Kingdom as well as other huge failings in government. With any luck, the coming meaningless referendum that only her supporters will vote in will be both her end and that of her party - much like Bloc Québécois. We can only hope.

Written by Daniel Gannon 23/11/2022