Niel Findlay, Labour list MSP for Lothian, recently suggested that Devo Max be added to any future independence referendum:
It’s fair to say that the responses were not uniformly positive:
The background to this is that before the 2014 referendum, when Westminster was worried independence would win, the leaders of the Westminster parties all made a vow saying in effect that they loved and respected Scotland and would give it more powers. Many Scots think this promise has been betrayed, and do not trust Westminster to deliver any real devo max.
The Vow
As a reminder, here’s The Vow again:
How Westminster could make devo max palatable
If there was a devo max referendum held alongside indyref2, for it to be palatable to Scots, the Westminster parties would have to:
clearly delineate, in legislation, what extra powers Scotland would get
make the devo max referendum legally binding: so that if Scotland votes for it, it automatically happens
and ideally: have the devo max powers include that Scotland's sovereignty belongs to the Scottish people, not to Westminster
Ideal devo max powers
So what new devo max powers should Scotland have?
Firstly and most importantly they must start with the acknowledgement that Scotland's sovereignty belongs to the Scottish people, and that if Westminster exercises some of that sovereignty, Scotland has only lent its sovereignty to Westminster and the sovereignty is still owned by Scotland. Consequently Scotland has the legal right to withdraw from the union at any time, if the majority of the Scottish people say so.
Other devolved powers should include:
On the economy, it should give Scotland pretty much full control over taxes and benefits (I wouldn’t object if the old age pension was reserved to Westminster; but working age benefits sohuld be devolve so Scotland can create a better systerm). Scotland would hand over a small amount of its revenue to Westminster for services that Westminster provides such as defence.
Scotland should have full control over Scottish criminal law. So if Scotland wants to e.g. legalise cannabis it should be able to.
The internet, telecommunications, postal services, and copyright law.
Energy, mining and exploitation of oil and other minerals.
Constitutional matters such as human rights legislation, running of elections, and registration of political parties.
Employment and business law, bankruptcies, trade unions, industrial relations, minimum wage, health and safety.
Everything to do with health, embryology, surrogacy and human genetics, and medicines.
In the rest of the UK...
The UK would become a fully federal state with each of its 4 constituent nations having a veto on entering or leaving any international organisation or trade agreement. (In an ideal world this would apply retrospectively to Brexit, but it is not in the UK government's power to get the EU to agree to that.)
England, or possibly the English regions, would get its own parliament. The UK parliament would only deal with UK-wide matters. All parliaments would be elected by proportional representation.
The main things that would remain to the UK parliament would be foreign policy, defence and currency/fiscal policy.
Consequently the Westminster parliament could be slimmed down to say 200 members.
The prospects of this happening
It's fair to say that there is approximately zero chance of Boris Johnson offering Scotland anything like this. It's a non-starter.
Labour might offer Scotland more powers in their 2024 Westminster manifesto, but these powers will very likely be both ill-defined and fall far short of this list.
Edit 2021-Mar-25
I’ve been informed by u/desolateisotope on Reddit that there is in fact polling on devo max. The question was:
Which of the statements on this card comes closest to your view about who should make government decisions for Scotland?
The Scottish Parliament should make all the decisions for Scotland (independence)
The UK government should make decisions about defence and foreign affairs; the Scottish Parliament should decide everything else (devo max)
The UK government should make decisions about taxes, benefits and defence and foreign affairs; the Scottish Parliament should decide the rest (roughly status quo)
The UK government should make all decisions for Scotland (unitary state)
Note: the 4 labels are mine, and yes I know that the 3rd option isn’t exactly what we have now, hence “roughly”.
Polling in 2019 was, in percentages:
Independence 52
Devo max 26
Roughly status quo 16
Unitary state 5
Note that in every poll from 2010 to 2019, Independence and devo max together form a majority. Given that most independence supporters would prefer devo max to the other 2 choices, it’s likely that a devo max would do very well if it was put to the people in a referendum.