FM chooses March 2018 as new date, citing upcoming Holyrood elections

mg9500, the first minister of Scotland, was forced to postpone his welfare referendum until March 2018 as planning and preparation for the referendum collapsed and could not meet requirements.



The decision to postpone the referendum, which was supposed to be held yesterday, came from Bute House yesterday. In the order, the government said that "Scottish Ministers are satisfied that it is impossible or impracticable for the poll at the referendum to be held on 30th November 2017 by reason of the date for the elections to the Scottish Parliament being in close proximity to 30th November 2017."



When taking questions from MSPs, however, the first minister failed to mention the Holyrood election as the reason for the delay. Instead, the first minister pinned some amount of blame on the civil service.



"The government is not responsible for this as we have done all that we could have done in order to hold the referendum today. Nevertheless we respect the decision of our civil service and will happily reschedule in order to meet their important needs."



Despite this however, opposition politicians have lined up to attack the delay, arguing that the first minister set a date that was impossible to meet and that he was to blame for the chaos of the referendum delay.



Duncs11, the leader of the Classical Liberals, said " It is quite clear that we are not having a referendum today, and therefore the referendum is not going ahead on the scheduled date! Now, to ask again, given that the referendum will have absolutely no effect, will the First Minister govern responsibly and cancel this farce of a referendum?"



mg9500 declined to cancel the referendum, saying that the referendum would be going ahead in March on its scheduled day.

