Labour, Liberal democrats and Tories persist in denying the right of Scots to decide in the ballot box whether they want to break ties with UK or not. Lib Dems are planning to present an amendment tomorrow in the Scottish Parliament to force Alex Salmond's government to drop the idea of a referendum at least until the outcome of 2011 elections. The proposal expects to win the backing of the rest of unionist parties.

According to BBC, Lib Dem leader, Tavish Scott, has said that they are not "against a referendum in principle", but "against spending time on the issue, rather than tackling the recession". This has been Tavish Scott's response to a call by John Farquhar Munro, a Lib Dem deputy in the Scottish Parliament, in favour of the referendum. Munro, who stated that the referendum should be held "as soon as possible", will have to vote in favour or against his own party's amendment.

Under such circumstances, and given the fact that it is expected that similar cases within Labour and Tories come up -a few months ago former Labour leader called for the holding of a referendum- several SNP members have challenged unionists parties to allow free vote to their deputies and break the rule of the party voting discipline. That is the only alternative SNP has left, since the unionist block would out vote SNP's minority government (nationalists hold most seats -47 out of 129- in the Scottish Parliament).

Brian Adam, member of the Scottish Parliament for the SNP, responded to the opposition arguments by declaring that "the more economic and financial powers Scotland has, the better able we will be to overcome the economic downturn".

'Utterly ridiculous'
The discussion in Parliament will not be confined to the referendum issue. It will basically deal with a Labour-led debate on "Scottish Government failures". Adam said that "the combined opposition looks ridiculous in the run-up to this debate. While they attack us over our fantastic record of policy delivery, they are also ganging up to try and stop us delivering on this manifesto commitment".

Picture: Scottish Parliament in Holyrood, Edinburgh.

Further information:

• BBC: Lib Dems say 'shelve' referendum
• Telegraph: MSPs set to overwhelmingly reject independence referendum in Holyrood vote
• Reuters: Bank crisis shows Scots need independence: minister

See Scotland Profile for further information.