It’s no great secret that the SNP would like a referendum on the issue of independence, indeed past polls strongly suggest that unionists and nationalists alike want one in order that this issue may be settled … at least for a while.
Of course a referendum is unlikely under any circumstances whilst there is a unionist majority at Holyrood. They simply won’t allow it. Won’t take the chance of losing it. Mr Salmond can offer all the ballot options he likes to the unionists in an attempt to gain their support for a referendum on the issue. I guess though that he knows as well as they do though that it just isn’t going to happen.
His latest suggestion of a multi-option referendum decided using the single transferable vote (STV system) is a complete non-starter and has rightly been labelled as such by the opposition parties. I’m not sure though that this offer was designed to gain their support though, I suspect that it’s been suggested to tempt ‘them’ towards what they might consider a less worse option - a multi-option first-past-the-post contest perhaps?
I doubt though that even this would be achievable, or even advisable, without a seismic shift in constitutional policy from one of the other main parties, which let’s face it, isn’t going to happen.
I suggested that it wasn’t necessarily an advisable option [from the SNP stand point] for settling this matter. I don’t think that a multi-option referendum can settle this issue at all, and STV would simply muddy the waters further. The outcome of any referendum on this issue must be absolutely conclusive, it’s outcome beyond question or reproach - whatever that outcome might be. Any multi-option poll risks returning a ‘winning’ option with less than 50% of the vote which would lay it bare to attack, simply put, it would be impossible to enact the outcome (unless it was Westminster’s preferred outcome that is). Any referendum must be single option, “yes” or “no”, for it to have any credibility, winner takes all - oh! and if you don’t vote you obviously don’t care one way or other.
I think that what we’ll see come 2010 (the SNP’s preferred date) is the unionist parties blocking moves for a referendum followed by a Holyrood election in 2011 when the unionist parties will have been tarred with the same ‘anti-democratic’ brush and the SNP look to significantly increase the number of the seats they hold.
Based on current performance the SNP could find themselves (assuming they don’t unravel) in a very strong position against a very weak main opposition party recently defeated in Westminster in the 2010 expected election (which is likely to see the constitution as a central plank). Of course the flip-side of that is that the winner will be riding on the crest of a unionist wave …
… more interesting times ahead I think!
