Indyref 2: What Next?

I was somewhat surprised by Nicola Sturgeon's statement in the Scottish Parliament today - it was considerably more clear cut than I had expected. I also found it reassuringly close to my preferred set of options - try for a Section 30 first, if that fails try for a referendum without, and if that fails use an election as a de facto referendum. I would have preferred that to be a Holyrood election rather than a General Election, but we can't have everything.

My big unknown concerns the question of what happens next? It's now clear that Westminster can't stop Scotland having a vote, of some description, so what is their best play?

My first thought is that they may well try to obstruct as much as they can - deny the Section 30 request, fight through the courts as long as possible, and if necessary repeal the relevant Act and/or specifically legislate to ensure the referendum can't go ahead. That buys time, but it doesn't stop the vote - the General Election remains the fallback, and can't be avoided.

I did wonder whether they might consider some legislation to try to block the SNP turning the General Election into a de facto referendum (perhaps by making it illegal to campaign for the break up of the country), but it's hard to see how they can do that without major problems in Northern Ireland. They might, of course, still do that, but let's hope not.

So that would suggest that the General Election will indeed become the fallback, a de facto referendum. Not my preference, but we really do need to get this done.

But...

I do wonder if Westminster wouldn't be better coming to the table and negotiating. "Yes, you can have a Section 30 order. But..." That probably gives them the most control over the process, and may give the union the best chance of survival. The big problem with it, though, is that there's only a limited scope for negotiation - there have been lots of fixes along the way, and patience with them is exceedingly thin. So trying to limit the franchise, or require a super-majority, or similar is probably a non-starter. Their best bet may be to influence the question - cast it as Remain/Leave rather than Yes/No. But I'm really not sure how effective that truly is.

Of course, there is one other option - block the referendum, let the SNP fight the election on that one-line manifesto, and then simply ignore the result. A few years ago I would have said that they surely wouldn't do that... but things are very different now.