Leader: Referendum deserves an independent referee

WITHIN the next four years, Scots will be asked to make a choice which could usher in the most profound constitutional change in mainland Britain for more than three centuries. A statement of the obvious, but worth emphasising as the day-to-day bickering over independence is already in danger of obscuring the bigger picture.

With the prospect of the end of the Union in sight, it is worth pausing to consider dispassionately the means by which this might be achieved: a referendum of the Scottish people. And because of the disputes between Holyrood and the Westminster coalition, aided and abetted by Labour, there is no certainty about the proposed plebiscite.

How a referendum is held matters as it will affect the outcome, yet there are still a large number of unanswered questions. What will the question be? Will there be just one, on “pure” independence, or two, including the option of “devo-max”? Who will oversee the process? What will the rules covering the vote be?

This uncertainty has been brought into sharp focus by the donation of £1 million to the Nationalists by SNP-supporting Lottery winners, Chris and Colin Weir. With this, and the legacy of nearly £1m from the late Makar Edwin Morgan, the already impressively professional SNP machine is already well ahead of its Unionist rivals who, pathetically, cannot even agree whether they might share platforms in the campaign.

This raises a very important issue. Most fair-minded people would agree it is in the interests of democracy that there is a limit on spending in a referendum campaign. In their previous referendum bill, the SNP suggested a £750,000 limit, a figure they can now comfortably exceed. So what do they now think the limit should be? Were they to increase it, their opponents would draw an obvious conclusion. However, even if there were some higher limit, defining what constitutes spending on a referendum and what constitutes general spending on the SNP, a party dedicated to independence, is difficult.

What is clear is there need to be rules and an organisation to ensure fair play in this highly contentious process. We have previously suggested the UK Electoral Commission is ideally placed for such a task. It has experience of referendums, most recently on constitutional reform in Wales, and is the regulator of party finances.

The SNP has objected to the commission’s involvement, apparently viewing it as biased, a charge undermined by the presence on its board of George Reid, a former SNP MSP. The SNP should cast such suspicions aside. If the it wants to be seen to be giving people a fair choice it should be mature enough to agree – ideally jointly with Westminster – for the commission to regulate the referendum. The SNP would not, after all, wish to be seen to be trying to buy independence.