The SNP's Indyref2 Mandate

There's a lot of nonsense being talked about the SNP's mandate to request a second independence referendum, so I thought I'd try and very quickly clear it up.

Let's start with what most people will probably have seen and heard - what was actually said during the final Holyrood 2016 TV debate (02/05/2016, just 3 days before the election):

So no ambiguity there, couldn't be clearer: 

"what I'm talking about is the Scottish Parliament having the right to propose a second referendum if it becomes clear that a majority of people in Scotland want independence, it would have to be a majority of people that want it"

Is it so naive of me to expect that Nicola Sturgeon might actually stand by her words?

The response from the SNP would of course be that what technically matters is the Manifesto that the SNP stood on.

So I took a look at the "Easy Read" copy. It is indeed an easy read and makes only one reference to another referendum (my highlighting):

"We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if it is clear that more than half of the people in Scotland want independence."

At this point I would suggest that - given their rhetoric and their "easy read" manifesto - the SNP morally only have a mandate to propose a second referendum if it is clear that a majority of people in Scotland want independence.

Needless to say a quick visit to What Scotland Thinks confirms what any fule kno: the "clear majority support for independence" condition isn't close to being met:

So how do the SNP justify attempting to drag us into an inydref2 against our will? By falling back on the fine print. In the SNP's long-form manifesto you will find - not in the Summary, not in the Vision, not in the Next Steps, but on the left-hand side of page 23 - that an additional clause has been added (highlighting mine)

So technically it is correct to say that the SNP's manifesto states:

"We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum  if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will."

Given we're into fine detail here, it seems fair to be picky about these words. Stating that you believe something should be the case is not making a manifesto commitment to do it or indeed asking for a mandate to call for it - it's simply a statement of belief.

Semantics aside, this is akin to Amazon pointing out that they can do pretty much whatever they like with your personal data because you ticked their Terms & Conditions box¹. The SNP may be able to argue that technically their manifesto gives them a mandate to ask for indyref2, but - given their pre-election rhetoric and summary messaging - morally they're on distinctly dodgy ground.

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1. I wonder how many people who shop with Amazon realise they've accepted "Terms & Conditions" that state Amazon "reserve the right to make changes to any Amazon Services, policies, terms and conditions including these Conditions of Use, and Service Terms at any time."?