Continuing our special week of coverage on self-determination, Sean Bell explores whether an independent Scotland would equal a sovereign Scotland? And what would it take it to achieve sovereignty in reality as well as principle?

HALFWAY through Nicola Sturgeon’s statement before Holyrood on Wednesday [24 April] – an address otherwise framed in scrupulously diplomatic terms of apparent outreach, inclusivity and attempted consensus – came an unexpected echo of the constitutional radicalism of a different era.

In seeking to cement Labour’s opposition to a second independence referendum, Richard Leonard has only energised a debate he hoped to end

CURIOUSLY ENOUGH, it was not a particularly slow news week when the revelation of a Scottish Labour leader’s opposition to independence made the headlines.