Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee 18 December 2025
I think that, at the time, because it was thought that there would not be a clamour for another referendum, that was a simple thing to concede because, intellectually, if one is in favour of the right to self-determination and one is a democrat, how could one say anything other than that?
I have not spoken with any members of the Smith commission since, but I have no reason to believe that they acted in bad faith then. However, I think that, having said what they said then and given the situation in which we find ourselves now—a Parliament with a majority elected for there to be such a referendum—there is a significant inconsistency there.
The only explanation that I can alight on is not intellectual. It is a political consideration that the starting position for a referendum campaign is that, de minimis, 50 per cent of those who express an opinion on how they would vote—yes or no—would vote yes. Therefore, it is more of a consideration about the risk of losing a referendum than about the principle of either democratic values or democratic processes.
I cast no aspersions on the members of the Smith commission then, but I am interested in hearing what they would say now. It would be very inconsistent of them, or, indeed, of the political parties that signed up to the commission’s recommendations—including the Scottish Conservatives, Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats—if they now take a position that is diametrically opposed to that which they agreed to in 2014.
10:45