Nicola Sturgeon must publish advice on legality of Indyref2, says Gordon Brown

Nicola Sturgeon on a visit to North Lanarkshire after the SNP's election win - Andrew Milligan/Pool/Getty Images
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Gordon Brown has challenged Nicola Sturgeon to publish her legal advice over whether Holyrood has the power to hold its own independence referendum.

The former Prime Minister also called on the First Minister to be “honest” about what independence would mean for Scots following her landslide election victory last week, which she has claimed as a mandate for a new vote on leaving the UK.

Ms Sturgeon is to seek permission from the UK Government to hold a legally-binding referendum once she decides the immediate Covid crisis has passed. However, she has made clear that she will seek to organise her own vote if Boris Johnson maintains his opposition to allowing indyref2.

It would then be for UK ministers to decide whether to challenge this in the Supreme Court.

However, Mr Brown, launching a new campaign to win over the 40 per cent of Scots he believes are undecided about leaving the UK, said the issue “cannot be solved in the courts” and called on Ms Sturgeon to release legal advice.

Most experts believe that, as the constitution is explicitly reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act, Holyrood would not have the power to hold its own vote, although the matter has not been tested in the courts.

Mr Brown said the advice would show that any vote held without permission would be “a Catalonian and wildcat-style referendum” and also demanded the SNP answer key questions about issues such as the English border and currency if Scotland was to leave the UK.

“If she wants to be honest with the Scottish people, she should not only publish that legal advice,” he said. “She should publish all the information and the facts and the figures about independence so that people will have all the facts in front of them, if they ever have to make that choice.

“The big issue is not the referendum – the big issue is independence. Can we find a way of explaining to people the facts about what independence means? I would challenge Nicola Sturgeon – she’s had years to think about this. Tell us what independence means, the benefits and tell us the costs.

“Tell us about the pound, tell us about the pensions, tell us about the border, tell us about quantitative easing, none of these questions have been answered. Every time you ask her, she says we’ll produce a plan some time –we actually should have answers to these questions by now.”

On Sunday, Ms Sturgeon acknowledged that it is debatable whether the Scottish Parliament could hold a referendum on its own but said the UK Government should accept her election mandate, meaning the courts would not have to get involved.

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, has insisted his party had already stopped the prospect of a new referendum by narrowly denying the SNP a majority, which Alex Salmond achieved in 2011, paving the way for the 2014 vote in which 55 per cent of Scots backed staying in the UK.

However, as eight Green MSPs were elected, there is a pro-independence majority at Holyrood, meaning Ms Sturgeon will be able to pass legislation and votes on separation.

Mr Ross has suggested Ms Sturgeon was bluffing over her threat to organise her own ballot as James Wolffe QC, the Lord Advocate, would not consent to legislation that was clearly beyond the powers of Holyrood.

Asked on Sunday whether she had received legal advice about the independence issue, Ms Sturgeon suggested she had not.

“We haven’t been planning for a referendum over this past year, I've been focusing on Covid,” she said. “But anybody who knows anything about the legislative process in the Scottish Parliament knows that any government has to consult its law officers before it brings forward legislation. So that will all be part and parcel of what we do.

“So no, we haven’t got to the stage of introducing a bill formally, but that will be part and parcel of the process.”

However, she sought to deflect questions over the legality over a referendum without UK permission to the question of whether it should get to the stage of a court battle.

She said: “All of this talk about legality and whether or not the UK Government would challenge the Scottish Government in court misses a point. The people of Scotland have voted for the SNP on the strength of offering, when the time is right, an independence referendum.

“As in 2011 leading up to 2014, any UK Government that has any respect for Scottish democracy would simply accept that and come to an agreement with the Scottish Government that put it beyond any legal doubt.”