Chris

I don’t think the disintegration of the UK is on the cards (caveat - it may accelerate the process of reunification in Ireland but that is the endgame envisaged by the GFA even though nobody will say it out loud - the circumstances and mechanism for a “border poll” are written into law in both the UK and Ireland, which is not the case, for example, with regards to Scotland).

Scottish Nationalists will “warn” that calls for a second referendum on independence will become irresistible if X, Y, or Z happens but then they warn that on a weekly basis so there’s no reason to take it especially seriously. I appreciate that only makes the national news when the cries are especially shrill but within Scotland it is part of the background noise and these things have far less lasting effect on Scottish public opinion than you might think.

There is a body of opinion here that says if/when Brexit occurs, whether or not there’s a deal, the sheer uncertainty it will cause over the short to medium term will make people think twice about supercharging it with more constitutional shenanigans. Scots are canny, they won’t vote to make themselves poorer and the unicorns-for-all argument that proved a tough sell even in 2014 is impossible now.

Nicola Sturgeon is presently engaged in a massive exercise in party management, trying not to allow the independence movement to fracture. There are some proper bravehearts in her party who really do think they should be holding another vote right now. There are also pragmatists (and Sturgeon is one of them) who actually do believe in the SNP’s started policy after 2014, which is that they shouldn’t hold another referendum until the polls consistently showed a comfortable lead for separation. That has never been the case in Scotland, at any point before or since 2014. Sturgeon’s solution is to present a Bill that will create an enabling Act, detailing how any referendum that the Scottish government has the power to call, should be conducted. It will not attempt to authorise the administration to hold any referendum that it is *not* authorised for. So the rules it creates will enable the Scottish government to hold a referendum on, for example, extending the franchise to age 16 for any election it is responsible for (local councils, for example), but its rules can only be applied to an independence referendum if Westminster has devolved the power to do so via the granting of a Section 50 order as it did in 2013.

Expect, this autumn, much noise to be made about this legislation as it is presented to Holyrood, but do not be fooled. Sturgeon is doing something because she has to be seen to be doing something.