Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond fuelled a tense constitutional clash with London on Wednesday, insisting that his government can organise its own independence referendum in 2014. London announced on Tuesday it would give Edinburgh legal powers to hold a vote on a break-up of the 300-year-old union, but said it would be unlawful unless done with London’s approval of the timescale and conditions.
But Salmond — a nationalist who is widely regarded as one of the sharpest political operators in the British Isles — has announced plans for Scotland to hold its own referendum in the autumn of 2014, on its own terms. The issue could eventually end up at the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court.
Salmond, whose Scottish National Party last year won the first majority in the Edinburgh assembly since it opened in 1999, said there was a “mandate for the Scottish parliament to organise and hold the referendum” on its own. “It must be a referendum built in Scotland and decided by the Scottish people,” Salmond told BBC radio.
He indicated however that he was ready to strike a deal if Prime Minister David Cameron’s government recognised it was lawful for the Scottish parliament to hold the referendum.
