MICHAEL Gove has named-checked The National and Sunday National’s Andrew Tickell during a post-election briefing with the Scottish press.
The Cabinet Office minister mentioned the regular columnist when pressed for his views today on whether the UK Government would take the Scottish Government to the Supreme Court over legislation to hold a second independence referendum without its agreement.
Gove suggested in an interview on the BBC yesterday that the UK Government would not proceed with such a case – a move Nicola Sturgeon has said would be damaging to the UK Government in public relations terms.
But he was asked by the Daily Telegraph this afternoon whether the issue could be a "red herring" as it would be open to any group to raise such a court action.
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"I'm not a legal expert. And I'm sure that there will be people who will be pitching in to this debate. So ... I wouldn't want to clear the pitch for Andrew Tickell or anyone else to give their wisdom, I'll stay out of that. I don't think I will add much to that debate when you've got proper legal experts there," he said.
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Tickell writes a weekly column for the Sunday National, mostly on legal and constitutional affairs.
He is highly regarded for explaining complex and technical aspects of Scots law to the paper's readers.
Tickell is originally from rural mid-Argyll and he studied law at the universities of Edinburgh, Utrecht, Glasgow and Oxford.
His profile on our website says: "By day, he is a lecturer in law at Glasgow Caledonian University. He started writing seriously about politics in the lead-up to the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, and has been writing regular columns ever since, focusing mainly on politics and law in Scotland, the UK, Europe and beyond."
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Gove's remarks appears to suggest he reads Tickell's contributions to our paper despite not being an admirer.
He previously described The National as "the worst newspaper in the world".
While on Sunday the Cabinet minister seemed to indicate to the BBC that the UK Government would not take the Scottish Government to court over Holyrood legislation to hold indyref2, he refused to rule out that prospect in the briefing today.
He was asked to make clear if Westminster had explicitly ruled out going to the Supreme Court in the scenario.
The First Minister and SNP leader told the Prime Minister in a phone call on Sunday that the Holyrood election - in which a majority of independence supporting MSPs were returned - means it is now a case of "when not if" there is another vote on the issue.
But Gove insisted the priority must be on the country's coronavirus recovery, branding any talk of a second referendum as a "distraction" and a "diversion" from that.
His comments came after the SNP was elected for a record fourth term in power at Holyrood, on the basis of a manifesto which promised another vote on independence before the end of 2023.
And while Sturgeon's party narrowly failed to get a majority, falling one short of this with a tally of 64 MSPs, the record eight Scottish Green MSPs that were voted in means there is a majority for independence within the new Parliament.
But speaking to journalists on Monday, Gove insisted: "Our focus is purely and principally on recovery at the moment.
"So of course there is a conversation about the constitution that some people will want to have.
"But we think that is a distraction from the urgent need to make sure that we deal with backlog in NHS waiting lists, that we work together on economic recovery overall and that we also learn from each other when it comes to public sector recovery as well, whether it is in education or criminal justice."
The Tory continued: "Politics is the language of priorities, our priority is to make sure we work with others on recovery at this moment.
"It is not a conversation we believe is right to have at this moment, because it can only be a diversion of energy and attention at a time when there are far more pressing issues."
Asked specifically if the UK Government would take legal action to block a second referendum, Gove would only say: "I'm not getting into the whole question of court and litigation and all the rest of it, because if we start theorising in the area then we are sucking oxygen out of the room when we should all be concentrating on recovery."
He added: "Other people I am sure will want to speculate or theorise about these questions, but to my mind every second spent asking questions about the Supreme Court is a second wasted when it comes to concentrating on the issues in hand."
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