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The Law Society knows full well what will happen when (not if) the SRA gets full independence. A huge swathe of solicitors will not want to bother paying subscriptions to it, because it has lost their confidence and does not do an effective job of representing them. Indeed, it spent £7 million of their money on the failed Veyo project and has annoyed many practitioners with its revenue-raising kitemark schemes. It also spent yet more of the profession's money trying (and failing) to defend the Socrates litigation.

The fear of losing members - and the fear of losing any vestige of control over the SRA - is surely a large part of why the Society is against the idea of full independence for the SRA.