Avoiding legal challenges
The Supreme Court has ruled that the issue of the Constitution is beyond the powers of the Scottish Government. Not only does that mean that Holyrood cannot legislate for or fund an independence referendum, it means it would not be able to fund an Independence
Convention, a convention that considers independence as the sole constitutional option.
However, speed is of the essence and given the high probability of malicious legal moves to limit the Scottish Government’s ability to fund work on independence, we believe the Citizens’ Convention therefore should not set out to consider the constitutional issues around the implementation of the strategy for creating a better Scotland. That can be done by the independence movement and pro-independence political parties as a follow-on exercise.
This means that the Scottish Government cannot be blocked from funding the Citizens’ Convention by Westminster.