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An increasingly attractive reason to see Yes win a second #indyref is that never again will I have to sit and listen to people comprehensively mangling the legal issues underpinning the poll, including stubborn but spurious squabbles about advisory and binding referendums.
People who're maintaining a referendum would be beyond Holyrood's legislative powers without a s.30? You're overstating your case. Its an arguable point of law which has never been authoritatively decided.
People who're maintaining a referendum would be clearly within Holyrood's legislative powers without a s.30? Ibid.
People who're suggesting the issue all turns on the difference between an advisory and a binding poll? Also bollocks, I'm afraid. The legal question is: "does the referendum relate to a reserved matter under the Scotland Act?" Not: "is it advisory or binding?"
People who say: why not just call it tomorrow and dare Westminster to block it? We know the UK law officers can refer a Bill to the Supreme Court. But critically, any punter could too. That, as the Continuity Bill showed us, takes time and derails political timetables.
None of these are reasons for Holyrood *not* to take difficult and even audacious political choices. It is just a plea to be intellectually honest - and realistic - with ourselves and our opponents about the legal context within which any choice will play out.
[/forgive the dyspepsia. It is just mildly frustrating to be retreading precisely the same legal arguments from a decade ago, with no apparent increase in public understanding, in great part because of duff reporting.]
