When a government decides it wants to put a fundamental question — independence, constitutional change, territorial status — to a public vote, you might assume the hard part is winning. In reality, just holding the vote can be the steeper climb. Around the world, referendums have been blocked, delayed, declared illegal, and mired in legal uncertainty for years before a single ballot is cast. Understanding why reveals something important about how modern democracies actually function.
Who Has the Power to Call One?
The first and most fundamental obstacle is legal authority. In most countries, the right to hold a binding referendum doesn’t automatically belong to whoever happens to be in charge of a regional government. It typically rests with the central, national government — and that distinction matters enormously.
In the United Kingdom, Scotland’s devolved government at Holyrood cannot unilaterally hold a legally binding independence referendum. That power sits with Westminster. The 2014 Scottish independence referendum only happened because the UK government granted Holyrood a temporary transfer of that authority through what’s known as a Section 30 order. When the Scottish National Party sought a second vote after 2016, Westminster simply refused to grant another such order. In 2023, the UK Supreme Court confirmed unanimously that Scotland could not hold a binding vote without Westminster’s consent.
Catalonia’s experience was even starker. When the regional government held an independence referendum in October 2017 without Madrid’s approval, the Spanish Constitutional Court had already suspended it as illegal. The vote went ahead anyway, was met with a significant police crackdown, and resulted in criminal prosecutions of Catalan leaders — some of whom received prison sentences of up to 13 years for sedition charges, later converted to reduced sentences under a 2023 amnesty law. The referendum produced no legal independence, and Spain maintains that its constitution bars any region from seceding unilaterally.
The Gap Between Self-Determination and Domestic Law
Here lies one of the most persistent tensions in modern political life: the principle of self-determination — enshrined in the United Nations Charter and widely cited by independence movements — frequently collides head-on with domestic constitutional law.
International law recognizes the right of “peoples” to self-determination, but its application is notoriously murky. It was designed primarily to address colonial situations, and international bodies have generally been reluctant to extend it to regions within established democracies. Kosovo’s 2010 declaration of independence prompted an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, which found that the declaration itself didn’t violate international law — but carefully avoided saying that Kosovo had a right to independence under it. That ambiguity has been exploited by independence movements and resisted by central governments ever since.
Canada’s Clarity Act of 1999 offers one of the cleaner legislative attempts to navigate this tension. Passed after Quebec’s near-miss 1995 independence referendum — which failed by less than one percentage point — the Act established that the federal government would negotiate secession only if a “clear majority” voted in favor of a “clear question.” It also confirmed that secession would require a constitutional amendment agreed upon by multiple parties, not just a vote. It set a process, but it deliberately avoided defining what “clear” actually means.
The Politics Underneath the Legality
Even when the legal path exists in principle, the political calculus makes calling a referendum genuinely risky for governments on both sides of the debate. Central governments that allow votes risk legitimizing the independence cause and potentially losing territory. Regional governments that call votes without authorization risk criminal liability, international isolation, and economic disruption.
Timing also matters enormously. Referendums tend to be called when governments believe they can win — but polling momentum is volatile. The Brexit referendum of 2016 was called by Prime Minister David Cameron largely because he expected to win it comfortably and settle the question for a generation. He lost by 52% to 48%, resigned the following morning, and the question has defined British politics ever since.
There’s a reason, then, that so many independence movements spend decades in legal and political maneuvering before a vote is ever held. The question of whether to vote often turns out to be more consequential than the question on the ballot itself.
As devolution debates continue in places ranging from Scotland to New Caledonia to the Western Balkans, the rules governing how — and whether — a population can formally choose its own future will only grow more contested. Democracy, it turns out, has a complicated relationship with the idea of asking the people.