What lies between - the Scottish Independence Referendum 2023

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McCorkindale, Christopher (2025) What lies between - the Scottish Independence Referendum 2023. Constitutuzionalismo britanico e irlandese, 2025 (1). pp. 64-87. (https://doi.org/10.69099/RCBI-2025-1-03-B6F)

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Abstract

Debates about the political and legal case for the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014 and the non-referendum of October 2023 have centred around the retention and resolution of ambiguities about political mandates and legal powers. In this article I want to put those ambiguities in the spotlight looking at how political certainty (that the SNP had won a political mandate to hold a referendum in 2011) and constructive ambiguity (about the necessity of a section 30 order to facilitate that referendum) were deployed to produce a fair, legal and decisive referendum; at how political entrenchment (for the UK Government, that “now is not the time” to revisit the referendum question; for the Scottish Government that Breit was a “material change of circumstances” from those which prevailed in 2014) and the achievement of legal certainty put paid to a second referendum in 2023; and, finally, how the achievement of legal certainty at the Supreme Court opened new political and legal ambiguities about the political and legal circumstances that might yet trigger a second independence referendum.

ORCID iDs

McCorkindale, Christopher ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8285-0791;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)