If they think they could win it, they could hold their own "people's poll" which would not be regarded as legally or constitutionally binding on Westminster and be derided as a glorified opinion poll. Assuming their supporters are more likely to turn out for a non-binding poll, a win could put added pressure on Westminster to concede a form referendum, something the Tories won't allow, but Labour might, specially if they needed SNP support to form a government post the next election.

At the moment everything Boris does is a gift for the SNP, because none of it takes account of Scottish sensibilities and is so obviously English ruling class inspired. If the SNP can't win even an indicative poll now, they never will.

Index of Frank's Diaries

What if there is a county in Scotland that wants to hold an independence (from Scotland) vote? Etc.

Basic question is how often and in what circumstances an organization unit can review whether it wants to be part of the next higher level. Should households be able to get independence from neighborhoods? Neighborhoods from towns? Towns from counties? Counties from states? States from countries? Countries from federations?

So what does SNP do when the Tories say no?

The article notes that they will look at other ways to hold a lawful referendum. This may mean the referendum is indicitive rather than binding. Or it could involve passing legislation with a commencement clause contingent on Westminster granting consent, waiting for it to be refused, and then going to court to try and force it to be granted (the constitutional convention with other colonies being pretty clear about that, and there being obvious reasonableness arguments. Which is probably another reason why the Tories want to gut judicial review).

It doesn't matter if this is immediately unsuccessful, because failure will just be another example of Westminster saying "no", and every time that happens support for independence rises (more time also means the demographic pressure for independence is stronger). Eventually, Westminster is going to have to agree, because a democracy cannot hold a people against their will forever - at least, not if they want to remain a democracy.

(The ultimate pathway is likely electoral - Westminster's electoral system is so cooked and gerrymandered in favour of the tories that Labour's most likely path to government is via SNP support. A referendum is the obvious price. If Labour refuses to pay it, I guess England will just face endless elections until they do)

Previous tangles with SCOTUK didn't legitimate Scotland independent of the Crown in parliament, notably Wightman v... Cherry v ... Miller v ... Tragically, neither does Sturgeon. Think about it: Why petition SCOTUK to compel permision of Whitehall to  approve a bill that has not been moved by parliament for vote? It is a bit of a ... counter-intuitve plan to cenure Henry VIII clauses, much less secede wholesale, from the Union.

I consulted, Sturgeon's greatest detractors to get a feel for the procedural drama behind the headlines. (Am surprised that they've convened! 2021's last post resembled a suicide note.)

The problem is that just last year, the Scottish Government itself - while it was inexplicably opposing Martin Keatings' private attempt to establish whether Holyrood could run an indyref without Westminster permission - successfully argued that the matter couldn't possibly be settled until a bill was passed, because the bill could be amended during the Parliamentary process and therefore the court wouldn't actually know what bill it was making a ruling on.

So immediately we're locked in an unbreakable loop - the Supreme Court refuses to make a ruling because there's no final bill to make a ruling on, but there can't be a bill for the Supreme Court to rule on, because the Lord Advocate won't grant permission for it until the Supreme Court has ruled on its legality ...

familiar flow bearing frightening resemblance to schedules extending debate of the "exit dates".