24. The People’s Final Say 🟢
The Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020 already supplies the machinery for a Scotland-wide poll. The 2026 Scottish Parliament electorate was 4,320,981. Ten per cent of that register is 432,098 signatures.
The Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020 already supplies the machinery for a Scotland-wide poll. The 2026 Scottish Parliament electorate was 4,320,981. Ten per cent of that register is 432,098 signatures. Holyrood can attach a citizen trigger to devolved questions. It cannot attach one to the Union. The Supreme Court said so in November 2022.
Current reality
Legal and institutional position
The Scottish Parliament legislates on what is not reserved. Referendums as a procedure are not listed in Schedule 5. Section 29 of the Scotland Act 1998 still bites: a provision is outside competence if it relates to a reserved matter, judged by purpose and effect.
The 2020 Act governs franchise (the local-government register, including 16- and 17-year-olds), campaign rules, spending, donations and conduct. It does not start a referendum. An Act of the Scottish Parliament must still provide for the poll.
The Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee considers admissible petitions on devolved national issues. There is no signature quota and no final vote.
[2022] UKSC 31 held that a Holyrood Bill for the question “Should Scotland be an independent country?” related to the reserved Union and the UK Parliament. An advisory poll was not a workaround. Political consequences were enough.
A binding duty on Scottish Ministers for a devolved result is available in an ASP. A later Parliament can still repeal it. That is the UK tradition, not a drafting error.
The latest official numbers
Electoral Commission, May 2026: 4,320,981 registered for the Scottish Parliament election (a series record). Ten per cent: 432,098.
New Zealand’s Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993 uses the same 10 per cent test and is indicative only. New Zealand has held five such referendums since 1994. Governments have not treated the results as binding.
Switzerland uses much lower federal thresholds (50,000 or 100,000 signatures) inside a different constitutional culture. German Länder typically sit in a 5–10 per cent band for state initiatives.
How it is experienced in daily life
A petition can fill a committee agenda and still change nothing at the ballot box. A government can run a devolved referendum when it wants one. A voter who wants a vote the government does not want has no statutory lever. A reserved question dressed as a “people’s vote” would be litigated, not counted.
How it got here
1997 and 2014 were government-initiated. The 2014 poll sat on a Section 30 Order. The 2020 Act was built so the next Scotland-wide vote would not need a bespoke electoral code. The 2022 judgment closed the unilateral independence route. Petitions filled the participation gap without filling the decision gap.
What has already been tried, and what that showed
Standing referendum law works as a framework. Petitions provide scrutiny—indicative citizen referendums in New Zealand function as expensive opinion polls. Binary questions compress trade-offs. Signature drives favour the organised.
What needs to happen
The improvement in measurable terms
If the mechanism is created, the tests are legal and operational, not rhetorical: a competence filter that survives challenge; a verified 10 per cent (or other stated) threshold; a single-subject, Electoral-Commission-tested question; a statutory consequence for a devolved Yes or No; a repeat-bar; petition-stage spending rules.
Sequence
Primary legislation first: admissibility, threshold, collection window, verification, question standards, binding duty, frequency limits. Then adapt the 2020 Act. Then resource the Electoral Commission and registration officers. Do not run a first poll as a live experiment in verification.
Workforce, capital and standards
Verification at 400,000-plus names is not a website form. Digital collection needs identity rules that would survive a petition challenge. A poll still costs a full national count.
What would count as success in twelve months?
An Act on the statute book, or a published Bill with a competence memorandum that a critic can test. Standing verification guidance. No attempt to smuggle a reserved question through the same door.
What can be done under current powers?
Who holds the lever
The Scottish Parliament, for a devolved-only scheme. The Electoral Commission and EMB for delivery. The UK Parliament, for any reserved question or Schedule 5 change.
The statute, budget or direction
Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020; Scotland Act ss.29–30 and Schedule 5; standing orders on petitions.
What is already possible and unused
An ASP creating a 10 per cent trigger, a five-year repeat bar, a single-subject rule, Commission intelligibility at the petition stage, and a duty on Ministers to introduce implementing legislation within a set period on a competent result.
What would still be true if management improved tomorrow
Independence, immigration, defence, most tax and the UK Parliament would still be reserved. A later Holyrood majority could still repeal the duty. 432,000 valid signatures would still be hard to get.
Where the limits are
Law and reserved powers
A citizen vote on the Union, without UK legislation, is outside competence. So is any petition whose purpose and effect are a reserved head. ECHR compatibility still applies to the scheme itself.
Money
Each poll is a national electoral event. Verification is a standing cost even if no vote is triggered.
Workforce and capital
Registration officers and the Commission have finite capacity. Concurrent petitions would queue.
Time, geography, UK-wide systems
Collection windows, challenges and a regulated campaign take months. The franchise is the Scottish local-government register, not the UK parliamentary one.
Political difficulty, kept separate from legal impossibility
A majority that expects to lose a vote will not enjoy passing the Act. That is politics. Calling a reserved question “the people’s final say” does not move s.29.
What is not yet known
Whether any session will introduce the Bill. How digital signatures would be verified under current identity law—the real cost of a first poll under the 2020 Act at 2026 prices.
Honest summary
Achievable now. A high-threshold, devolved-only, binding-as-far-as-a-Parliament-can-bind citizen referendum, using the 2020 machinery.
Only partly achievable. Entrenchment against a future Parliament. A system that is both easy to trigger and immune to organised money.
Would require reserved change. Any automatic vote on independence, the Union, or other Schedule 5 heads.
Colour mark: green. The devolved safety valve is within competence. Green is not a claim that 10 per cent is magic, or that “final say” includes the constitution.
What this item does not settle. It does not choose 10 per cent as the only honest threshold. It does not treat petitions as a failure. It does not reopen [2022] UKSC 31.
The test is simple. Can a critic read the Bill and see, in the same clause, a real trigger for housing or education and a hard stop on the Union? If not, the title is doing work the statute cannot.
Connection
The Independence Debate is the reserved boundary this item must not blur. Item 18 is parliamentary standards sitting beside, not instead of, a rare public vote. No other 28 item is a referendum subject unless a later Act says so.
People’s Future Scotland
