Sighs of relief were felt in Tory Towers at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday following the verdict of the UK Supreme Court to deny the Scottish Government the ability to hold a second Independence referendum.
We can exclusively expose the secret Scottish Conservative plan to publicly boycott the referendum, should the court have ruled the opposite way.
While senior advisers and former MSP’s briefed that a plan to boycott could not be relied upon to stop independence, it is said to have been the preferred strategy of the Scottish branch.
It would seem they had not expected the court to be so blunt with its verdict – that in the event of the Scottish Government holding indyref 2 – that a positive result would in effect overrule the ‘sovereignty’ of the UK Parliament.
The party would likely have campaigned on a ‘Fake Referendum’ platform – trying to dissuade voters from turning out and creating such a high Yes vote – that it couldn’t have been regarded as legitimate.
The conundrum now facing the party is that the vote is being switched to a UK General Election, with a single issue as a manifesto, something they cannot boycott.
Likewise, a single issue general election to Westminster does not question the sovereignty of the UK Parliament – in fact it uses its power to deliver an independent country.
After all it was a certain famous Conservative Prime Minister that suggested that no politician would stand in the way of electoral success, through a majority of seats, when mandated for Scottish Independence.
