Supreme court on why it decided it had power to hear independence referendum case

Here is the press summary of the judgment.

And here is the full 35-page judgment.

Scottish government loses at supreme court as it says Holyrood does not have power to legislate for second independence referendum

Reed signals supreme court does not accept Scottish government’s key argument as to why referendum should be allowed

Reed says the supreme court has decided that it is the public interest to decide this.

Reed says supreme court can rule on this case

Reed says the Scotland Act gives the Scottish parliament limited powers. It cannot legislate on reserved matters. Those include fundamental matters, including the union of the UK.

If legislation related to the union, or the UK parliament, the Scottish parliament would have no power to enact it.

He says the referendum in 2014 was allowed under a section 30 order, which amended the list of reserved matters for the purposes of the referendum.

This case arises because the Scottish government wants to introduce a bill for another referendum. But the UK government will not allow another section 30 order, he says.

Supreme court judgment unanimous, says Lord Reed

Supreme court delivers judgment in Scottish independence referendum case

We have a live feed of the supreme court at the top of the blog.

From the SNP’s Angus MacNeil

If you want to know more about the legal issues at the heart of the Scottish independence referendum issue, the House of Commons library has produced an excellent 102-page briefing on the subject.

Here’s an extract from what is says on the issue of whether the court will decide it can rule on this matter given the Scottish parliament’s referendum bill has not been passed yet.

Precedents suggest courts dislike “hypothetical” or “premature” references. In this case, the supreme court is being asked to consider a Bill which has not yet been introduced to the Scottish parliament, and which could be amended after it has. This is unprecedented. As Professor Armstrong has observed, the question for the supreme court will be “whether it is right to give an answer to the question posed at a pre-legislative stage as opposed to a subsequent pre-enactment stage” …

In the Keatings case, Lord Carloway, lord president of the court of session, said a “draft bill has no legal status. If a bill is introduced, it may or may not be in the form which is contained in the draft. No matter what its initial form, it may be amended.”

In that case, Scottish government lawyers also argued that the lawfulness of any referendum legislation “depended on its terms when introduced and when passed” by MSPs, as it could be amended during the parliamentary process.

There is more on the Keatings case here.

Alex Salmond, the former SNP first minister who now leads the Alba party, told Times Radio this morning that refusing to let the Scots decide their own future would be counter-productive. He explained:

There’s no better way to rile the Scots than to tell them they can’t have a democratic choice on their own future that does tend to upset people, and rightly so. Because regardless of people’s views on the independence question, whether for it or against it, the vast, vast majority of people in Scotland believe that Scotland’s a nation, nations have the right of self determination, and basically it should be up to the Scots to decide whether they become independent or not.

To be told they can’t do it by a court or for that matter a government in London, there’s no better way to galvanise Scottish opinion.

The SNP MP Joanna Cherry is making the same point.

This is from the SNP MP Tommy Sheppard. He is making the point that, even if the supreme court says the Scottish government does not have the legal right to hold another independence referendum, it should have the democratic right to call such a vote.

Good morning. We will find out soon whether the supreme court is going to rule that the Scottish government has the power to hold a second independence referendum. The first one, in 2014, resulted in Scots voting to stay in the UK by 55% to 45%, which was a lot closer than many people would have predicted in the months and years before the vote. It was the closest the United Kingdom has come to breaking up since Ireland left 100 years ago. Understandably there is a lot of interest in whether Scotland will be allowed to try again.

As the SNP MP Angus MacNeil points out, there are three possible outcomes today.

According to the BBC’s Nick Eardley, the Scottish government privately thinks its chances of winning are just 20%.

But that seems optimistic, for at least two reasons. First, to win, the Scottish government has to clear two legal hurdles. The UK government argued that the supreme court should not even be hearing the case because the Scottish parliament has not actually passed its referendum bill yet. The Scottish government has to persuade the supreme court that the issue is justiciable in the first place, before persuading it also that Scotland has the right to hold the referendum.

Second, when the UK parliament passed the Scotland Act, the UK government was very clear that the legislation was not intended to give the Scottish parliament control over constitutional matters. The Scottish government is trying to get round this by arguing that a referendum would only be “advisory” (because there would have to be separate legislation to enact independence). This may be confusing to people who have heard nationalists argue for years that a referendum would settle the matter, and it is not an argument that the supreme court judges seemed to find compelling when they heard the case in October.

At the time Lord Reed, president of the supreme court, said it would take them “some months” to reach a decision. The fact that they are delivering their judgment six weeks later suggests that they have not found it hard to take a side, and – again – that might imply they are not minded to come up with a ruling that would upend the UK constitution.

Still, you never know.

Here is my colleague Libby Brooks preview story.

And here is her Q&A on the case.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.45am: The supreme court delivers its judgment in the case about whether the Scottish government is entitled to hold an independence referendum.

9.45am: Suella Braverman, the home secretary, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.

12pm: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

3pm: Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the autumn statement.

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