Thursday, January 18, 2018

The ultimate betrayal: Scottish Tory MPs vote to destroy the devolution settlement as we have known it for the last twenty years

I wasn't following the notorious events in the Commons the other night very closely, so I was intrigued to see what the wording of the Labour amendment on protecting devolution actually was.  Hansard is murderously hard to make sense of sometimes, but as far as I can see this is the one -

"(4) The Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament proposals for replacing European frameworks with UK ones.

(5) UK-wide frameworks shall be proposed if and only if they are necessary to—

(a) enable the functioning of the UK internal market,

(b) ensure compliance with international obligations,

(c) ensure the UK can negotiate, enter into and implement new trade agreements and international treaties,

(d) enable the management of common resources,

(e) administer and provide access to justice in cases with a cross-border element, or

(f) safeguard the security of the UK.

(6) Ministers of the Crown shall create UK-wide frameworks only if they have consulted with, and secured the agreement of, the affected devolved administrations."

And the explanatory note on the effect of the amendment -

"This amendment removes the Bill’s proposed restrictions on the ability of the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly to legislate on devolved ​matters and creates new collaborative procedures for the creation of UK-wide frameworks for retained EU law."

As you can see, the amendment would not, if it had been passed, have changed the status quo in respect of devolution - it would instead have upheld the status quo, and rectified the parts of the EU Withdrawal Bill that are intended to repeal the central principle of the Scotland Act 1998, namely that anything not specifically reserved to Westminster is fully devolved, without exceptions.  (You might recall that this principle has been so watertight until now that it was discovered a few years ago that powers relating to Antarctica had been devolved to Holyrood in 1999 without anyone even noticing.)

As has been well-rehearsed, if the Scottish Tory MPs had voted as a bloc for the amendment, it would have narrowly passed by two votes, and the devolution settlement they are supposed to regard as sacred would have been preserved.  Instead, they voted against what they claim to believe in, and the amendment was defeated by twenty-four votes.  It's important to stress that the Bill has now entirely completed its passage through the elected chamber, and will automatically pass into law in its current devolution-busting form unless the Lords amend it, which self-evidently is something that Scottish Tory MPs (let alone SNP MPs) can have no direct control over.  It is literally the case that the Scottish Tories have voted to rip apart the devolved settlement as we have known it for the last twenty years, and are now relying on a ragtag of hereditary peers, Anglican bishops and Tony's Cronies to put it back together again for us.  And this is standing up for Scotland, Ruth?  This is "bloody well getting it done", is it?  This is what "producing results that the SNP's grievance politics can't" looks like, yeah?

It's become the fashion among unionist commentators to scoff at the notion that the pre-referendum "Vow" was never implemented. One frequently-heard (and extremely cynical) argument is that the promises made were so vague and unspecific that the UK government could have done or not done pretty much anything and still accurately claimed to have delivered the Vow. But let's take one component of the Vow that was pretty specific, namely that "the Scottish Parliament is permanent". No reasonable person would have taken that to mean "there will permanently be an institution called the Scottish Parliament, but whether it retains any or all the powers it currently has will be decided at the whim of the UK government". The pledge was quite properly interpreted as meaning that the powers held by the Scottish Parliament in 2014 were the minimum that could now be regarded as permanently protected. As things stand, the EU Withdrawal Bill that the Scottish Tories have just voted through will therefore directly breach the Vow. That's the default position Ruth Davidson's handiwork has left us with. But perhaps the 7th Marquess of Salisbury and the Bishop of Durham will step in and save the day? Fingers crossed, eh?

28 comments:

  1. Did anyone really expect the Scottish Tory MPs to vote against their own government?

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    1. Our wonderful media certainly seemed to anticipate that outcome when they told us that Scottish Tory MPs were "technically the fourth largest party in the Commons" and would "vote as a bloc". I'm not saying I was ever that naive, mind you...

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  2. Kangaroo says
    Lickspittles the lot of them.
    What say you now GWC2?

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    1. Who cares what she says? Seriously.

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    2. Scotland could be governed from Westminster. Scottish MP'S could sit for two days. Local government delivers our essential services.. I would demolish Holyrood and the massive savings would go towards the public services. Holyrood, Stormont, Cardiff and Brussels are all gravy trains for unnesesary politicians and their bits on the side. Knobs like IainTaylor just want to get their feet under the table.

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    3. Kangaroo says
      Well GWC2 you may want to shut down layers of Government, so we should just pull our MPs from WM and leave the Parliament of England to Govern themselves as it would make no difference to the outcome for the English. We need Holyrood because they do stuff for us that WM actively tries to undermine.
      See the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy8dEz-1upM
      for details

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    4. You need to reply to my main point and I say there far are too politicians than that required. We used to before devolution have around seventy MP'S.

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    5. Kangaroo says
      70 Scottish MPs were fine at that time because there were all the other English MPs to ensure that the wide range of portfolios in an independent state (Britain at the time) were fully managed. However it was obvious that they were not being managed in the interests of those living North of the border. So we were stuck with South of the border policies, even these tended to suit London and the SE.
      Whilst I agree that we should ensure there is a reasonable number of MPs to handle the workload I disagree that all the decisions should be taken in WM as that will just revert back to the people who live in the North not getting a fair go.

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    6. If 70 MP's represented Scotland and UK interests then 70 MSP'S seems a reasonable ammount. The Scottish MP'S clearly have less responsibility since devolution.

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  3. Actually, the Anglican bishops are as likely as anyone to defend devolution.

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    1. That observation somewhat misses the point, but I'll bite anyway: is there any particular reason why Anglican bishops would give a monkey's one way or another about devolution?

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  4. I would say this is the right time to call a second Indyref.
    This not about EU o UK anymore, but autonomy and centralism, too.

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  5. The problem is that many Scots will not have noticed this nor will they take the time and effort to find out and understand it. They will only notice, and possibly disapprove (or possibly not - there are to their shame Scots who despise the Scottish Parliament) when it is too late.
    This ignorance will be carefully nurtured by the press and the BBC not reporting, or even misreporting, what has happened.
    Do you think the people who voted in this bunch of Tory tossers will even notice this?

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    1. This. The Vow was aimed at soft Yessers, hardly any of whom would have voted for the Ruth Party.

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    2. True, but the hope is that soft Yessers/soft Noers will now recognise that Labour/the Record/the Vow have enabled the Tories to do this.

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  6. The Daily Record and, I think, the Herald said if the Vow was not upheld then they they would support Independence.
    I don't see any banner headlines on that now. Worthless wankers rule.
    On a more general point I find it amazing how people in Scotland are willing to believe negative stories about Scotland, more so because the effect of them believing negative stories, where they give their votes to Tories or divert their votes to Labour, only benefits those who would take everything from them.

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  7. I wonder if Baron Bottle of Cumnock will be either awake or sober enough to notice this bill's passage through the House of Lords. Might Baron Splendid of Darling raise his voice in defence of Holyrood? Maybe Baron McConnell of Flunky will ride to its rescue like the US cavalry.

    I doubt it.

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  8. The useless for Scotland thirteen have succeeded in doing what unionists in Scotland put them there for ,voting as a bloc for their Westminster masters , to scupper debate on Scotland's behalf .This has allowed the bill to be bypassed by the democratically elected members of the house the commons ,denying them the right to have amendments passed thus putting it into the hands of non-elected , pampered ,sleepy headed , know it all's . The House of Lords will grandstand and pretend they are trying to make it fair , they will drag it out for months , but at the end of the day they will come to the conclusion that the bill is fit for purpose . Forget the House of Lords ,they will never have Scotland's best interests at their core , our best bet is the Scottish Government tightening the screw every step of the way until a fair settlement is reached , if that doesn't transpire , the only alternative is for Scotland to declare UDI !

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    1. You make a valid point here, in that the conservative MPs from Scotland are probably well representing the people who voted for them. If that is the case, then who is to say they voted incorrectly? You promote the values of the people who put you there.

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    2. Sorry, but you don't. That is exactly how you destroy a democracy. You vote for people who will represent YOU as you are not there...YOU are working...sure they favor their supporters, by they represent everyone, even no, voters and people not in their district.

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    3. Anonymous: In a Representative Democracy, the elected representative is supposed to defend the needs of ALL the electorate in their constituency and not simply those that voted for him/her. They are there to look after the wider interests not narrow party political ones.

      In this case the wider interest is not simply those of their constituents, but the core principles of the devolved powers embedded in Holyrood. They have let down their wider constituents AND the rest of Scotland.

      It is clear the Tory 13 have o idea about what they are representing, and I suspect care even less. We live in a sham, there is no TRUE democracy in Scotland or the UK under this abused and antiquated system of governance.

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  9. It's only when the Scottish parliament is no longer there will the Selfish Scots realize how better they where off and when Westminster has direct rule will the country vote for Independence of 50% plus.

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  10. http://act.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/page/18503/petition/1?en_chan=fb&locale=en-GB&ea.tracking.id=facebook

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  11. Latesr YouGov subsample (Westminster VI):
    SNP 42%
    Lab 28%
    Con 21%
    LD 6%
    Grn 2%
    UKIP 1%

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  12. You nat sis want to declare UDI then go for it. We Unionists are ready for a Civil War in your local Irish pub.

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  13. It would be interesting to compare the number of ex MP’s and MSP’s rejected by the Scottish electorate who sit in HoL and who will have a final say in this issue, with the 59 elected MP’s who will not.

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  14. Welcome to Tartan Toryland the gulf between the rich and poor widening. Looks like you Jockos are outdoing your Blue Tory buddies.

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