Chris

True, but the social upheaval is significant. The political debate in Scotland has become quite poisonous since 2014, and the referendum campaign itself was not without its financial cost, not to mention how much of the day to day running of government simply didn’t happen for about 18 months in the run up (nor for long spells afterwards, while the SNP devoted all its time to trying to engineer sufficient grievance to justify round 2 - at one point Holyrood went about 14 months without enacting a single piece of primary legislation, except the finance bill).

The SNP does not have a majority of seats in Holyrood and they have only able to progress any votes on a further referendum with support from the Greens. The SNP’s manifesto commitment to push for a second referendum in the event of any significant change in circumstances (with Brexit given as a specific example) breached the undertaking they made during the 2014 referendum campaign that this was, unqualified, a once-in-a generation, if not once a lifetime, event.

So you can argue that the SNP’s manifesto is a clear mandate for them, even if it’s a breach of trust, however, crucially, it’s the Green manifesto that’s the spanner in the works. Their manifesto stated very clearly the conditions under which a second referendum should be held; they called for a petitioning process that enabled a second referendum only to be called by direct will of the people and specifically ruled out questions of “party political advantage”.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/0...king-sturgeon/

So there are essentially two strands at work here as I see it.

1. SNP and Green between them have a majority of seats at Holyrood but based on both their manifestos, as voted on in the last Holyrood general election, they do not have a majority of seats that were won on a commitment to a second referendum, in this parliament, to be called by vote of MSPs.

2. The British Parliament is sovereign in all constitutional matters and that sovereignty carries with it a responsibility to ensure stability and good governance. Regardless of manifesto commitments made in a Scottish election, a divisive constitutional referendum must be a decisive, once and for all event, or else government becomes consumed permanently by one single issue. That has been the case in Scotland since late 2013 and it has become the case across the UK recently too.

The UK government, supervised by Parliament, has every right to tell the Scottish nationalists to do one and not to change that position until conditions dictate otherwise. I more or less agree with the Scottish Green manifesto here - there must be sustained evidence of a change of heart in Scotland before we submit ourselves to it again. Thus far, there is no sustained evidence of any change, and never has been. Yes majority polls like the one released last week occur from time to time but they are always isolated.