THE Scottish Government: defenders of devolution to the last redoubt or intransigent blowhards? Both pictures were presented to the Scottish public yesterday, and each looked distinctly blurred.
SNP ministers stuck to their position of maintaining that, as Westminster’s EU Withdrawal Bill stands, the UK Government could spend the next seven years legislating across several areas in Holyrood’s place, which First Minister Nicola Sturgeon rightly insisted was “unacceptable”. The Scottish Government would never agree to that, but had “put forward solutions that would form the basis of a deal”.
The problem is that the Welsh administration, which also published its own Brexit bill as an alternative to Westminster’s, has already agreed such a deal. How, the Scottish opposition parties asked, had Scotland found itself “standing alone”?
Worse still, had Scottish Brexit Minister Michael Russell not been on the brink of agreeing a deal, only to be over-ruled by the First Minister? Mr Russell categorically denied this, but was unforthcoming when asked what exactly divided the Scottish and Welsh administrations. All we learned was that there was “a key sticking point”.
Rightly or wrongly, the Scottish Government has found itself on the back foot here. The issue has been manna from heaven for the Tories, allowing them to trot out tired clichés about “narrow nationalism” and “stoking grievance”. That doesn’t help.
However, legitimate questions remain, and a clear picture of what exactly has been going on has not been offered. Yesterday’s developments, alas, shed more heat than light. Today [Wed], the UK Government is due to publish further amendments to clause 11 of the EU Withdrawal Bill, the one that is stoking up problems for devolution.
But the Nationalists are adamant that the amendments will do nothing to lift threatened restrictions to the Scottish Government’s devolved powers. They want clause 11 removed from the bill altogether or for the present system, whereby Holyrood’s consent is needed for Westminster legislating in devolved areas, to be maintained
Once more, they claim to be the only party defending Scotland’s interests. Even supposing that were the case, the question is: are they going the best way about it?
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