Scottish independence: SNP Green referendum plan is a charade – John McLellan

If the chances of a referendum next year were minimal before, they are to all intents non-existent now, with each piece of legal argument pointing to a dead end at the Supreme Court

Nicola Sturgeon has announced a date for a second Scottish independence referendum. But is it legal? (Picture: Russell Cheyne/pool/Getty Images)

Even without the UK Government applying to have the case rejected, as it’s entitled to do, the chances of the UK’s top judges ─ led by a Scot ─ applying the law and deciding the terms of the Scotland Act allow Scottish parliamentarians to smash the British constitution unilaterally are zero.

We now know that previous Lord Advocate James Wolffe told the Scottish Government that asking a court to test the legality of legislation is pointless before the legislation has been through Parliament, amended and passed, and even though his successor Dorothy Bain disagrees, we also know now that the Supreme Court has rejected two similar approaches from Northern Ireland’s Attorney General.

And even if the court does hear the case, the law which puts the constitution beyond the Scottish Parliament is clear, as Ms Bain has already told the First Minister.

As for the folly of trying to turn a general election into a referendum, with Boris Johnson in the saddle in 2019 and “Getting Brexit Done” the closest thing to a single issue, the SNP-Green vote totalled 46 per cent.

In other words, after the SNP government used every ploy to boost their case, the result was a one per cent increase in what might be spuriously claimed as support for independence.

The sooner this charade is over the better.