So, let me get this straight. From 2011 until the Edinburgh Agreement of 2012, senior figures in the coalition government and in the Labour opposition were as one: Holyrood did not enjoy the legal power to order an independence referendum on its own authority.



The SNP may have claimed a thumping majority in Holyrood, the party may run the Scottish Government, and they might claim a political mandate from their 2011 election victory - but in law, at least, any referendum required Westminster's consent. The referendum "related to a reserved matter" - the Union - and as such, was beyond the powers given to the Edinburgh parliament in the Scotland Act of 1998.





"The UK government’s legal view is that the Scottish Parliament has no power to deliver a referendum on independence." The cross-party Advocate General and Liberal Democrat peer, Jim Wallace, gave a speech at the University of Glasgow, setting out this legal analysis The cross-party Scottish Affairs Committee , under the unabashedly partisan headship of Glasgow South West MP Ian Davidson, endorsed Wallace's analysis, claiming that it was crystal clear that the proposed referendum fell outwith Holyrood's legal competence and would almost certainly be struck down in the courts. David Cameron echoed the threats and menaces of his Liberal Scottish legal advisor.





Neither the Labour Party, nor the Liberal Democrats and Tories wanted to block the poll - they accepted that there ought to be a "legal fair and decisive" vote - but the Better Together chorus was at one on the illegality of any unilateral attempt by Holyrood to order a poll without reference to the Mother of Parliaments on the banks of the Thames.





The Edinburgh Agreement and the subsequent order under s.30 of the Scotland Act cleared up this legal uncertainty, explicitly authorising a referendum on independence, subject to the conditions that the Electoral Commission was involved, that no "devo max" question appeared on the ballot -- and that the poll was held by Hogmanay 2014.





The constitutional hour glass having run out on the 2014 referendum, you might imagine that Labour, Tory and Liberal Democratic parliamentarians would believe that we had returned to the ante referendum status quo. At least legally. If they had any faith in their legal analysis in 2011 and 2012, they would draw comfort from the thought that no future #indyref is currently possible, without negotiated consent from Westminster. You might have thought that they would feel pretty damn pleased with themselves. The only risk of another independence referendum, in their legal analysis, is if the overwhelmingly pro-Union majority in the House of Commons voted to allow one. So why the exaggerated air of snark and panic?





But truth, reason and fidelity to their past arguments seem to have gone out the window in these heady general election days. In a last desperate gambit, Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat candidates and ministers are blundering around the country, and blethering to their fellow travellers in the media, screeching that the perfidious Nats are plotting to inflict another separation poll upon the Scottish and British people. This, you know, despite categorical statements from senior SNP sources that none of this is on the cards.







But on their own legal analysis, the only route, the only viable legal path to another independence referendum is if the overwhelmingly pro-union majority in the House of Commons and Lords voted to authorise one. The only danger of Jim Murphy experiencing another referendum is if he slurps too much Irn Bru, and in the grip of a sugar high, gallops through the wrong lobby in the palace of Westminster. According to his government's legal analysis, Nicola can no more force David Cameron to endure another referendum, than she can introduce a Scottish minimum wage, or unilaterally seize control over Scotland's social security net.





If there is, as senior Labour folk all argued, a crystal clear UK lock on granting or refusing an #indyref, why the manufactured panic? It couldn't be a desperate ploy, could it? A last ditch, knowing and winking nonsense designed to put the fear up credulous people who know no better? Heaven forfend.





What's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Is it a monster?



