Scottish independence

Leonard Hofstadter wrote: »

So it sounds like if anything, the entry of this party is more likely to damage the unionist parties and thus the parties in favour of another referendum are going to have no trouble getting a majority of the seats in Holyrood, or have I misunderstood?

However, election experts are warning that the political impact of the Alba party is extremely unpredictable and could inflict tactical problems for the pro-independence cause. John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said Salmond faced a “substantial strategic challenge”.

“The success or otherwise of the enterprise will rest heavily on Mr Salmond’s personal popularity,” he added. “Though it might pick up some activists and perhaps SNP politicians the party will have little organisation or resource, and will be heavily reliant on his personality. However, Mr Salmond is not a very popular politician. According to YouGov and Opinium, only 14% of all voters have a favourable view of Mr Salmond. Among current SNP voters the figures are 16% and 18% respectively.

“Given [the SNP’s] current standing in the polls, they could well be dependent on picking up a handful of list seats in their weaker regions [to win an overall majority] – most obviously the South of Scotland and the Highlands. Mr Salmond might thus cost the SNP an overall majority – and that may well be much more important than the total number of pro-independence MSPs.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/28/alex-salmonds-alba-party-is-a-danger-to-the-union-says-top-tory

cameramonkey wrote: »

has the ring of the 1918 elections in Ireland about it.

Johnson is said to be adamant in private that he will not be the prime minister who permits a referendum and the Conservatives will hammer home the message that holding such a poll during a pandemic would be deeply irresponsible.

Reports in the Sunday Times suggested that, while the UK government’s position remained that it was opposed to granting Holyrood the requisite powers to hold a legal referendum, senior Tories believe this would be hard to sustain should the SNP triumph on 6 May, and that Johnson would be better off forcing a vote during the economic upheaval likely to follow the pandemic to underline the risks of Scotland leaving the UK.

If they [the Tories] themselves are saying the only way to stop a second referendum is to prevent that majority, then logic says if they get the majority, there will be one.

Brexit has shown the union is no longer based on consent, but on law. The law is made at Westminster, which is sovereign. England dominates Westminster. The English majoritarian restraint that was so marked when governments were more sensitive to the need to accommodate differences is today like an abandoned house on the top of a crumbling cliff.

You can see the consequences in things like the demise of the Sewel convention, which held that devolved powers should not be altered without the consent of devolved governments. Brexit killed that. The Internal Market Act goes even further by enhancing UK government power. This week, the UK began a supreme court challenge against two Scottish bills on the grounds that they exceed Holyrood’s competence. But a decision to refuse a referendum for which Scots had voted would trump that. It would tell Scots there was no lawful way of leaving the UK.

Aegir wrote: »

It isn’t the content of the bill that is the issue, it is the manner in which it is being implemented.

The UK government told the SNP this but they carried on anyway.

It’s almost as if the SNP did this deliberately

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

The UK govt told the Scottish Parliament but the parties in the Scottish Parliament carried on

The bills were passed with the full support of the SNP, Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems and Scottish Greens. Not one MSP opposed the bills

Aegir wrote: »

And how exactly was anyone expected to vote against this? It would have been an absolute gift to the SNP.

Aegir wrote: »

No, it’s the Westminster parliament ensuring that the constitution is upheld correctly.

If the Scottish parliament has enacted legislation that binds Westminster to something, then it is against the constitution of the UK.

Aegir wrote: »

The law society of Scotland twice proposed amendments to the bill, raising concerns about its legality

Aegir wrote: »

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/25/uk-government-set-to-go-to-supreme-court-over-holyrood-bill

https://www.lawscot.org.uk/research-and-policy/influencing-the-law-and-policy/our-input-to-parliamentary-bills/bills-202021/united-nations-convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child-incorporation-scotland-bill/

John Swinney
Amendments 49, 50 and 52 to 54 would significantly undermine the protection for children’s rights in Scotland that the bill seeks to put in place and are at odds with the Scottish Government’s ambition that the bill should provide for the highest level of protection possible for children’s rights within the powers of the Scottish Parliament. It is of fundamental importance that any incompatibilities in legislation that would be within the power of the Parliament to make can be remedied.

The amendments proposed by Mr Stewart would remove from the protections offered by sections 19 and 20 of the bill all acts of the United Kingdom Parliament that fall within the competence of the Scottish Parliament—for example, that would include all pre-devolution legislation over which competence has been transferred.

To help members to understand the significance and scope of the proposal, it would put out of the scope of the Scottish Parliament acts such as the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, the Scottish parts of the Police Act 1997, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, the Education (Scotland) Act 1996, the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978, the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, the Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985, the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937, the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland) Act 1965, the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 and the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 1992.

The amendments are very wide reaching and would significantly undermine the protection for children’s rights that the bill seeks to put in place.
I was somewhat perplexed when I heard Mr Stewart talking about his amendments as “probing amendments”, given that I received a letter on 4 March from the Secretary of State for Scotland in which he requested
“that the Scottish Government table an amendment that makes it clear that Westminster legislation is removed from the scope of sections 19-21.”
Members will not be surprised to hear that, in my reply of 9 March, I told the Secretary of State for Scotland that we would do no such thing. I am therefore surprised that such an approach has been marshalled as “probing amendments”, when there was nothing probing about the secretary of state’s letter of 4 March—in fact, I would describe it as menacing.

The Secretary of State for Scotland thinks that he can write menacing letters to the Deputy First Minister of Scotland to seek to exempt key pieces of legislation that are integral to this Parliament’s legislative competence. We have had a little display of how he then sends in his functionaries to do his bidding for him later. That demonstrates that a very orchestrated and sustained assault is under way on the Parliament’s powers. I am not surprised that that is being cooked up in the secretary of state’s office in—

Aegir wrote: »

So the Scottish government thinks the bill is perfectly within their powers, yet the Law Society of Scotland doesn't?

Sounds like like a supreme court decision to me.

Aegir wrote: »

So surely the best way to prevent any debate is for the Supreme court to make a ruling? It means there is no ambiguity over what the Scottish and Uk Parliaments can and can't do.

Just like the ECJ ruling on the SNP bill to introduce minimum alcohol pricing, although oddly that didn't get people up in arms about the sovereignty of the Scottish Parliament for some reason.