Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee 18 December 2025
I must be absolutely frank with Mr Brown: I am not a lawyer and nor am I a legal academic or an expert in any sense, so I do not feel that I am suitably qualified to answer his question about English law.
I would observe, however, the Supreme Court judgment—which has been well reported—in relation to the ability of us as parliamentarians in the Scottish Parliament to decide to hold a referendum. Everything that I have seen has advised me that it is unlikely that the Supreme Court would make any different decision from that which it made before. That gets us back to the same conundrum and challenge that we have been discussing since the beginning of this session, which is that it is a matter of political will, political decision making and consensus as democrats that the democratic process should be at the heart of determining our political and constitutional future.
We have a precedent. Given that we have a precedent that we know was agreeable to the UK Government and given that we know the result would have been recognised internationally had Scotland voted yes in 2014, I am of the view that we should secure agreement through the ballot box and that that is exactly what should happen again if a majority of parliamentarians who support independence are returned to this Parliament.
Otherwise, there is the next conversation, which is about the future of political culture in Scotland if we have a blocking minority. If the people who lose the election are telling those who are elected and represent the largest group of people who voted in that election that they cannot exercise the choice that they were voted in for, that is pretty serious and it is not sustainable. It cannot go on.
What is the solution? The solution is to do what David Cameron did, which is to make a vow. We know that there is a not just the rhetorical avowal of the right of self-determination that we have already narrated this morning. There is a route by which this can happen. I would wish it to be a standing right of the Scottish Parliament to be able to determine its future whenever a majority of people elected to this place, acting on behalf of the people who have elected them to come here, determine that that is what should happen. There is no substitute for that.
It is a pretty simple question. Are we democrats—yes or no? If we are, do we believe that the public should be able to exercise a right about the constitutional future of the country—yes or no? My answer is yes to both those things. That being the case, what is the mechanism? It is time for those who cast doubt on this to be absolutely clear about de minimis. It has to match that which exists for one of the other constituent nations of the United Kingdom, which is Northern Ireland.