Posted: Oct 03, 2017 5:55 pm
ronmcd wrote:Tracer Tong wrote:I expect that, whatever he chose to do, it wouldn't have been to steam ahead with a referendum anyway.
Oh I dunno, I suspect it may well have been. We certainly wouldn't have had riot police battering people who tried to vote, there would likely have been a much more polite and sensible response, with the unionist parties telling pro union voters to keep away, and the turnout and result would have made it largely irrelevant.
It all seems fairly outlandish to me. The modern-day SNP is committed to achieving independence via strictly legal means, which is participating in a long British, and Scottish, ideal of respecting the rule of law; and Salmond strikes me as a supporter of that approach. Had he faced a situation in which permission for a referendum was refused, he would probably have just campaigned, through the courts and in the media, to have that refusal overturned, rather than unilaterally declare he was having a referendum anyway. Even on the pretty unlikely scenario of his making such a declaration, I'm not sure whether Scots (along with everyone else) would so much approve or disapprove of his decision as just be completely nonplussed.