Jim Gallagher: The referendum process has to be, and be seen to be, fair and balanced

Lawyers may maintain the fiction that Parliament is sovereign, but the fact of the matter is that if the people give a clear answer, then the politicians have no choice but to accept it.

That’s why the 1997 referendum entrenches the Scottish Parliament in the UK constitution, even if the legal formality is that Westminster could repeal the Scotland Act.

So would an independence referendum decide whether Scotland became independent? Or could it, as Scottish ministers argue, be “consultative”, so the politicians could consult the people and do something else?

A referendum is not an opinion poll. It’s a serious question, seriously asked, of the whole electorate – whose answer is authoritative.

The Scottish Government has rejected the idea of having two referendums, one to authorise negotiations and one to decide on whatever deal can be cut. But consequences follow. If a referendum is to be decisive, people have to know what they are deciding. It won’t do to say, “When we are independent, maybe somehow we’ll still have this or that aspect of the UK” or that independence might take a number of forms.

Equally important, a referendum that decides a nation’s future cannot leave the losing side shouting, “We was robbed”. The process, the question, the franchise, the campaigning – all have to be, and be seen to be, fair and balanced: and that applies as much to the plans of Unionists.

• Professor Jim Gallagher was a leading Scottish civil servant and served as director-general for devolution at Westminter.