NICOLA Sturgeon has been accused of a cover-up after releasing almost 7000 responses to the consultation on her referendum bill just as Holyrood closed for summer.
A government-commissioned summary also excluded comments from people on whether it was a good or bad idea to have another independence ballot.
Although the consultation was on technicalities such as the franchise and spending limits, Unionist groups had encouraged people to express an opinion on holding a second vote.
The analysis admitted “the main theme” of unsolicited comments was “the principle of holding another referendum on Scottish independence”, but added: “It was not within the scope of this project to conduct an analysis of these comments”.
The analysis reported concerns about electoral fraud, especially postal votes; support for ex-pat Scots to have a vote; and opposition to public money going on a referendum.
The consultation received 7,198 valid responses, of which 6,806 were published on the Scottish Government website yesterday as MSPs left for the summer recess.
The consultation, which pre-dated Ms Sturgeon’s proposal for a referendum by spring 2019, attracted many positive responses, but also a number of sharply critical ones.
Examples included: “This is a complete waste of public money that we can ill afford”, “The country voted No the last time” and “We've had our once in a lifetime vote!”
The First Minister ordered civil servants to start work on the bill the day after the UK voted 52-48 to leave the UK and Scotland voted 62-38 to Remain.
It was published it for a three month consultation in October.
On Tuesday, in light of the SNP losing a third of its seats at the general election, Ms Sturgeon announced she was shelving the bill until at least autumn 2018.
She said that once the terms of Brexit were clear at that point, she would set out a “precise timescale” for holding a new vote, probably before the 2021 Holyrood election.
The delay means a referendum now cannot take place until spring 2020 at the earliest - and only then if the UK government gives Holyrood extra powers it has so far refused to transfer.
Labour MSP James Kelly said: “The Nationalists may claim they have hit reset on the referendum but as a government it is the same old story of cover ups and dodging scrutiny.
“Publishing consultation responses to the SNP plan for an unnecessary divisive referendum on the last day before recess is a classic Nationalist tactic.
“It's clearly in the public interest to show how much opposition there was to this plan but the SNP government have refused to publish a clear analysis of these figures.”
Scottish LibDem leader Willie Rennie said: “No matter how much the First Minister might want to believe otherwise, the election made this consultation largely redundant.
“The government now needs to seal its fate by ruling out another referendum for this parliamentary term.”
In its response to the consultation, the Scottish Government said there was a “strong degree of support” for the bill as drafted, but said ministers would “take due account” of the responses when it returned the legislation once the terms of Brexit were known.
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