SNP's 'reality check' as parties reject home rule referendum

THE SNP was under severe pressure last night to drop its bill to introduce a referendum on independence after it was comprehensively defeated in the Scottish Parliament yesterday.

In a major boost to the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, ahead of his address to Scottish Labour delegates in Dundee to day, MSPs voted by 72 to 47 to reject a referendum, leaving the Scottish Government with just the support of Holyrood's two Greens.

And the unionist parties have claimed that, although the vote was symbolic, it represented a stage one vote on a referendum bill – which means they will vote it down as soon as it is presented to parliament.

They pointed out that the SNP dropped the controversial proposal for a local income tax because it was clear that there was not a parliamentary majority for it after a vote just before Christmas, and said that the same fate should now befall the referendum bill.

The SNP had said it was still possible other parties may change their mind. At the weekend Mike Russell, the Scottish Government's minister for the constitution, said: "You don't know if there is a parliamentary majority until there is a vote."

In addition, concerns were raised by a former Holyrood Labour spin doctor, Mike Elrick, that the cost of the SNP's National Conversation and bringing a bill forward would cost Scotland more than 200,000 at a time when the Scottish Government's Budget is under major pressure.

The vote came on a Liberal Democrat amendment to a Labour motion on how the SNP has allegedly failed Scotland, and it represented the first time MSPs have had a chance to register their views on a referendum.

The Liberal Democrat chief whip, Mike Rumbles, who tabled the amendment, said that Scotland was a representative democracy and that there should not be a referendum until a majority of MSPs who wanted one were elected.

After the vote, he said: "This is a reality check for the SNP. They need to ditch the referendum and ditch it now. Scots worried about their jobs don't want to see the Scottish Government wasting time and money pursuing this dead-end policy that has no hope of success."

The Conservative leader, Annabel Goldie, said the "independence party is now over".

"By the SNP's own benchmark, this issue is dead," she said. "There has been a vote and the SNP has lost it big time. It is time for the SNP to admit the party is over, to drop its independence obsession and to get on with being a devolved government in Scotland."

But the SNP leadership last night remained defiant it would try to give the people of Scotland an opportunity to decide their own constitutional future in 2010.

A spokesman for Alex Salmond, the First Minister, said: "This is a disaster for the unionist parties. To come together in this anti-democratic cabal shows contempt for the people and their right to choose Scotland's future.

"The last time the London parties ganged up in this way was to force through the Edinburgh trams project. Does anyone in Edinburgh or Scotland think they were right to do so?

"They were wrong then, and they have adopted the wrong position now, because it is the right of the people – not opposition politicians – to choose Scotland's future."

During the debate, many SNP MSPs demanded to know where veteran Liberal Democrat MSP John Farquhar Munro was. He had mysteriously been allowed to go to Germany to address a health conference after saying on Friday that he was in favour of a referendum.

The Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, suggested there was more support for a referendum on the back-benches which was being suppressed by party leaders. She challenged opposition leaders to allow MSPs a free vote on the issue.

"Or are you so scared of the result of the referendum that you are prepared to block it at any cost?" she asked. She pointed out that the majority of Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters want a referendum, according to recent opinion polls.

The issue spilled over into First Minister's Questions when the Labour leader, Iain Gray, asked whether Mr Salmond would now drop the proposed referendum bill.

Mr Salmond hit back by pointing out that Mr Gray himself had said Labour would support the bill "whenever it comes" in May last year, shortly after former leader Wendy Alexander issued her "bring it on" call.

Mr Salmond warned: "I'm confident, as Iain Gray recognises the electoral repercussions of trying to deny the Scottish people the right to self-determination, he will get back when the bill comes forward to his position of May last year."

But Mr Gray made it clear that the failure of the SNP to take up Labour's offer last year meant that it had been withdrawn and may not be offered again.

"In May last year, Labour offered the First Minister a chance to hold a referendum fair and square," he said. "It was him who lost his nerve and slipped away from that opportunity. When the chance was offered, he was found wanting and that chance has gone."

He added that Scotland needed a referendum bill like "a hole in the head".

Give Holyrood more powers on taxes and laws, say Lib Dems

SCOTTISH ministers should be given sweeping new tax and law making powers, including the ability to raise the money they spend, the Liberal Democrats said yesterday.

Areas where the parliament should gain new powers include drugs, firearms, marine and transport policy, energy, human rights and the electoral system, the party said.

It should also be allowed to raise "as much of its own expenditure as is practical".

There is a "strong case" for Holyrood to get all the Scottish revenue from income tax, corporation tax, fuel duty, vehicle excise duty, tobacco and drink duties and inheritance tax.

The Liberal Democrat blueprint for the future of Scotland was contained in the party's official submission to the Calman Commission into devolution, which the party helped to set up.

It will be put to the Liberal Democrats' Scottish conference next week and then formally submitted to the commission shortly afterwards.

Tavish Scott, the party's Scottish leader, said: "We want powers for a purpose, powers to help the Scottish Parliament fight the recession and protect jobs.

"The Scottish Parliament needs to be accountable. It needs a range of taxation powers that allow the government of the day to make real decisions which can support people and businesses through the recession.

"Liberal Democrats will continue to drive forward the campaign for a real home-rule settlement for Scotland," he said.

The document is in line with the federal set-up for Britain that the party has long advocated.

Some of the debate on the future of devolution has focused on "assigned revenues" for Holyrood.

That would involve Holyrood getting an agreed share of some of the taxes raised in Scotland, without extending the Scottish Parliament's own taxation powers, currently limited to varying income tax by 3p.

The Liberal Democrats argue, however, that "assigned revenues" do not go far enough, and that Holyrood needs additional fiscal powers. They say the commission must come up with a stronger home-rule settlement for Scotland.

The document calls for the commission to consider creating three categories of taxation – Scottish taxes, all of which would go to Holyrood, shared taxes, with Holyrood being assigned an agreed share of the revenue, and federal taxes, all of which would go to the UK parliament.

The first category could include income tax, corporation tax, drink and tobacco tax, and inheritance tax.

The second category could include VAT and North Sea oil taxes, and the third could include national insurance, capital gains tax and non-property stamp duty.

Under its favoured federal system, as well as gaining new powers in certain policy areas, Holyrood and Westminster would share responsibility for fighting unemployment, and would also share transport, broadcasting and energy.

Holyrood would have powers to "raise as much of its own expenditure as practical", and borrowing powers within agreed UK guidelines.

Again within an agreed framework, it would have the power to abolish or introduce new taxes, while Westminster retained the tax powers needed to pursue its responsibilities – particularly in defence, foreign affairs, pensions, social security and the management of the economy.

SNP still doubt disputed by-election result

THE SNP claims doubts remain over the Glenrothes by-election result after an inquiry into the loss of documents was unable to determine when and how they disappeared.

The inquiry concluded there was no malicious intent to the loss and it does not put the result into doubt.

Bill McQueen, formerly the Deputy Chief Executive of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, who carried out the inquiry, said the loss of the documents at Kirkcaldy Sheriff's Court was due to human error.

The inquiry was set up after it emerged that the marked forms showing who had voted had disappeared after they had been delivered to Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court for safe-keeping.

By law these forms need to be kept for a year

but ten weeks after the SNP requested them on 19 November, the court admitted the documents had been lost.

At the time the SNP claimed the loss cast a shadow over the election result which saw Labour's Lindsay Roy win by nearly 7,000 votes.

The SNP described the report as "a huge disappointment" and pointed out that the proper running of elections is the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Scotland Jim Murphy.

Analysis - 2008: SNP's year of missed opportunity

THERE is a chance that future historians will describe 2008 as the year when the SNP blew its best opportunity.

Labour was on the floor with a fatally wounded Scottish leader, Wendy Alexander, mired in scandal and a UK leader, Gordon Brown, losing his authority by the day. The party was not in a state to fight a referendum. But in the midst of all this turmoil, Ms Alexander offered the SNP Scottish Labour's support for a referendum. But to her rallying cry of "bring it on", Alex Salmond's response was "not just yet, wait until 2010".

Now, as Ms Alexander's replacement, Iain Gray, has made clear, the offer has been withdrawn. In his dotage, Mr Salmond may reflect that, had he had his referendum in 2008, he might have won it, especially if it had become a question of Salmond versus Brown in the minds of voters.

Last night's vote showed the three Unionist parties have finally worked out that the one sure way of blocking separation is to not pander to the SNP, but simply to use their overwhelming block vote against it.

The SNP's referendum bill will not get past its first reading next year and the party may never get another chance.