AN independence referendum called without Westminster consent could be both illegal and constitutional, a leading politics expert claims. Aberdeen University’s Professor Michael Keating says a “paradox” means a ballot called by Edinburgh alone could be legally illegitimate and constitutionally sound at the same time due to the way UK rules are drawn up. And he says these rules must be changed “if the UK is to survive as a union of nations rather than a decentralised unitary state”. Keating – who will next month release his new book State and Nation in the United Kingdom: The Fractured Union – makes the claim in a new piece for the Scottish Centre on European Relations (SCER) think tank.