Now Sturgeon can focus on schools and hospitals, ex MP Tom Harris says

Now Sturgeon has a choice: Continue to peddle division and grievance… or finally focus on schools and hospitals, writes former Labour MP TOM HARRIS

Of all the verdicts the Supreme Court could have delivered, this was the best for those of us who favour the Union. But it was the worst for Nicola Sturgeon.

Their lordships could have chosen not to rule at all on whether the Scottish Parliament had the right to hold another referendum without the approval of the UK Government.

They could have even said that a Bill enabling a vote would have to be passed by Holyrood before they would even look at it. 

That would have been intensely frustrating: More months, maybe years, of delay before we got a ruling.

Instead, their lordships unanimously decided what those of us who have taken the trouble to read the Scotland Act – the legislation that set up the nation’s parliament back in 1999 – already knew.

The Union between Scotland and England is a matter that is reserved to the UK Parliament – and Holyrood has no legal authority to interfere with it.

Although she expressed disappointment at the ruling, the First Minister knew that this was the most likely outcome.

Questions should now be asked as to why Miss Sturgeon insisted on telling Scotland that another referendum was on its way, even when her most senior legal advisers – including the government’s Lord Advocate – warned her it was not.

Of course, the answer is that it provides her with yet another excuse to claim Scotland is a vassal state – and that already seems to be the line she is taking.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who leads the Scottish National Party (SNP), said she respected the ruling, but accused Westminster of showing ‘contempt’ for Scotland’s democratic will

Former labour MP Tom Harris wrote ‘…she could, as Scotland’s First Minister, start focusing on the responsibilities that Holyrood actually has, such as health, education, transport and the environment’

Just because the limits of Holyrood’s legal competence have finally been confirmed does not mean the Scottish nationalists will give up their fight for independence. 

On the contrary, they will use the court’s ruling as a recruiting sergeant, portraying it as yet another display of the power of an overbearing United Kingdom establishment.

Indeed, this was exactly how Miss Sturgeon played it. In a tweet following the ruling, she said with reference to the Supreme Court: ‘It doesn’t make law, only interprets it. 

A law that doesn’t allow Scotland to choose our own future without Westminster consent exposes as myth any notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership & makes case for Indy.’

So what options are open to the SNP now?

It is certainly a possibility that Miss Sturgeon could stage a shock resignation, presenting it as a valiant and dramatic act of martyrdom, in much the same way that her predecessor, Alex Salmond, fell on his sword after his movement’s defeat in the 2014 referendum.

Or she could choose to press ahead with her Plan B: To declare that the next UK General Election will itself be a ‘de facto’ independence referendum and hope to gain a mandate for leaving the Union that way.

Such a tactic is fraught with danger and Miss Sturgeon herself decried it as ‘a Unionist trap’ a few years ago, slapping down activists who proposed it.

But what else can she do, now it has been confirmed that she can’t legally hold a referendum?

Well – and this may sound radical to diehard nationalists – she could, as Scotland’s First Minister, start focusing on the responsibilities that Holyrood actually has, such as health, education, transport and the environment. 

The Supreme Court has given her an opportunity. History suggests she will squander it.

• Tom Harris was Labour MP for Glasgow South 2001-2015 

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