Brian Wilson: Radical creativity? No. We get an SNP power-grab instead

The Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill would allow ministers, in an emergency, to “modify or amend” any Act of Parliament without legislative scrutiny. At the stroke of a First Ministerial pen, the said emergency would be (a) defined and (b) used to justify implementing these powers.

Legal academics warn that the Bill poses a serious threat to civil liberties and democratic processes. To me, it’s another example of the Lilliputian qualities of the Scottish Government – people who think they should have more powers and status than they actually do and, as compensation, try to big themselves up whenever an opportunity arises.

Does Scotland really need to be a “world leader” in legislating for draconian emergency powers or could we not just settle for implementing practical measures that might allow us to do things better in future? Could we maybe learn from good practice elsewhere in Europe or work constructively with other parts of the UK?

The most charitable interpretation of the Bill’s “emergency powers” aspect is that it is all nonsense, to make its sponsors feel terrifically important. Surely, common sense suggests, there are no circumstances in which even the feeble checks and balances which Holyrood currently offers would be swept aside in this way?

But who knows? The operators of hospitality venues would, for example, need some persuading that if special powers exist to close them down peremptorily, an “emergency” having been declared, they would not be used excessively and to no good effect – which is pretty much what happened in the run-up to Christmas.

Remarkably, 4,000 organisations and individuals responded to a consultation on the Bill, with 90 per cent wanting to send Henry VIII and his powers homewards to think again. John Swinney complained that opposition had been “whipped up” by his political foes, which is obviously not his idea of what “consultation” should be about. Cheer-leading is voluntary; dissent is “whipped-up”.

When the education secretary, Shirley-Anne Somerville, appeared before a Holyrood committee last month, she was asked to cite circumstances in which the powers would be required. Her answer was that if right-wing university principals declined to shut down their institutions in face of an “emergency”, the Scottish Government could use these powers to do it for them.

Ms Somerville – who, heaven help us, is also responsible for schools – elaborated: “If we had an institution with a senior management team that has, perhaps, the Boris Johnson approach to how you deal with coronavirus rather than actually listening to public health guidance, such as we have up here, then we need the powers to be able to deal with that. Otherwise we would have large institutions with thousands of staff and thousands of students that are an integral part of our community having a very, very different approach to dealing with coronavirus than the government does”.

This seems a bizarre hypothesis about the integrity of Scottish Universities from the education secretary on which to base legislation. It also, in passing, builds in an assumption that “we” did it better “up here” in responding to Covid-19. From Nike to care homes all the way through to current case figures, there is not a shred of evidence to support that contention, which is essential to Nationalist myth-making.

Once again, their politics are all about “powers” rather than how they are used. The dreary alternative is to do things they are already empowered to do, a great deal better than at present. For most SNP Ministers and MSPs, however, the present is no more than a regrettable period of politics-in-waiting. Their motivator is independence and, since that is not on offer, they are left with the consolation prize of running the place in the meantime, but without much enthusiasm or competence.

It is difficult to think of a current SNP politician who is identified with a cause other than independence. My own MP, Angus Brendan Macneil, tweets constantly about it. He has just been named Westminster’s champion tweeter, with a remarkable 119,000 entries to his name. But I honestly struggle to think of any cause he has shown a consistent interest in other than independence.

You can go through the card – Sturgeon, Swinney, Brown, Blackford – and apply the same test. What brought them into politics other than Nationalism and what will they ever be associated with other than their devotion to that cause? Can any one of them put their name to a piece of legislation or campaign which righted a wrong or advanced the interests of Scottish, far less UK, society?

It wasn’t always like this among respected SNP politicians who had a wider hinterland and other causes to fight. I remember interviewing Winnie Ewing in Brussels and being impressed by her commitment to establishing free travel across Europe for young people. Margaret Ewing was a highly regarded, consensual Parliamentarian on social issues. Margo MacDonald was a brave, formidable campaigner for unfashionable causes. And so on.

Their pro-independence credentials were never in doubt but there was more to their politics than that. Of how many current SNP MPs or MSPs can that be said? If there are honourable exceptions, as there surely must be, then they should make themselves heard without feeling the need to fit everything into the straitjacket of the constitutional debate.

The Henry VIII “row” is now the kind of division on which Scottish politics exists. It is about powers rather than people and aggrandisement rather than actions. Meanwhile, the crying need for radical creativity stays unanswered while the failures in basic competence are all around us.

* Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.