A TORY peer has become the latest pro-Union figure to concede another independence referendum will “probably” happen.
Lord Daniel Finkelstein backed calls by former Labour MP George Galloway and Conservative Cabinet minster Michael Gove to allow people born in Scotland, but now living elsewhere, to vote in a second plebiscite.
During a Politics Live discussion on indyref2, the peer conceded another vote “probably” will happen – but insisted the rules should be different next time.
In the 2014 independence referendum, all EU or Commonwealth citizens living in Scotland and over the age of 16 could vote. The Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020 features the same rules.
Speaking to the BBC programme, Lord Finkelstein said: “There are lots of people who engaged with the question of whether the United Kingdom continues, and obviously the people of Scotland are one of the largest groups in that decision but they’re not the only group. It’s right that actually the UK Parliament has some sort of – has the power over the decision about whether we have a referendum.
“My view is we just recently had a referendum. One of the reasons why I opposed the second referendum on Brexit is because of the precedent it would set. You can’t keep asking people the question then decide you’re going to do it again until you get the right answer.
“What the SNP want to do is keep on having referendums until one of them comes up trumps. My view is you have referendums, they are once in a generation things.”
He added: “Now there’s also the politics of this. I do understand you can’t simply forever say to the Scottish elected government you can’t have … my view is if they do have that referendum that’s also something that everybody who was born in Scotland has eligibility to be in the Scottish state should have a right to have a say on as well.”
Later he agreed there “probably will” be a referendum but there needs to be an “argument about eligibility for voting” first.
A Scottish Government source said: “Like Michael Gove, Lord Finkelstein now appears to accept a referendum is going to happen – but the fact that leading Tories are endorsing anything George Galloway says is the surest sign yet of the rising panic in Downing Street at the surging support for independence.
“Any bid to move the goalposts is doomed to fail. Mr Gove is already on record as saying ‘it wouldn’t be fair’ to change the franchise rules for a second referendum, and the 2014 vote, based on residency, set the gold standard.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told parliament on Tuesday that a draft Bill on Scottish independence will be published by March next year, which would outline a time-frame and possible question for a referendum.
She was criticised for doing so by Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson at First Minister’s Questions yesterday.
Sturgeon hit back saying: “I believe that it is for the people of Scotland to choose their own future.
“I will argue that case in a democratic election. People will be able to decide in how they vote. If they endorse my view that there should be a referendum on independence, they will then have the right to choose Scotland’s future.
“Fundamentally, I believe in democracy. We now know that Ruth Davidson does not.”
Later Scottish Greens MSP Patrick Harvie welcomed the plan for a
referendum Bill, adding: “We need to act now with that radical and creative spirit if we expect people to believe in the potential of the country an independent Scotland can become.”
Polls suggest 54% or 55% of voters now back independence – the latter reversing the result of the 2014 vote.
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