Theresa May\u2019s de facto Deputy, David Lidington took to the Brexit Roadshow in a long line of UK Cabinet ministers stamping their authority\u00a0on the process of leaving the EU.<\/p>\n
Mr Lidington\u00a0has reportedly sent a warning shot to Nicola Sturgeon telling her Brexit must not be used as an excuse to break up the United\u00a0Kingdom. Prime Minister Theresa May’s ally said the UK is at a crossroads but severing ties would leave every one of the four nations\u00a0“weaker and poorer,\u201d even if Brexit has greater impact on Scotland than any of the other\u00a0\u2018home nations\u2019.<\/p>\n
In fact, referring to the UK as four nations is infuriating enough. Northern Ireland is not a nation. It isn\u2019t even a province as the nine counties\u00a0of Ulster is the true province, not the six that were partitioned so placate a protestant Unionist minority.<\/p>\n
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But I digress. We are told that the UK Government is at last going to table its amendment to Clause 11 of the EU Withdrawal Bill setting out\u00a0which of the powers that are currently devolved but decided by EU law, will be handed to the Scottish\u00a0Parliament. Or as suspected, held\u00a0back by the UK Government in a neat little \u2018power grab\u2019.<\/p>\n
Now, UK ministers will suggest that the vast majority, maybe even as many as 86, will be automatically passed to Holyrood. However, the\u00a025 that are being held back are the important ones impacting on the likes of fisheries policy and agricultural support. It\u2019s almost like\u00a0someone saying you can have all the flowers in the garden but not the seeds, watering can, fertiliser etc.<\/p>\n
Still, the haughty threats from Westminster are falling on deaf ears. They have had ample opportunity to spell this out since the 26 June\u00a02016. Now we are seeing the Scottish Government, supported by the Scottish Parliament, taking the initiative by taking back control.<\/p>\n
UK thinking was that EU powers would be handed back to the sovereign (in Westminster\u2019s eyes) member state and then devolved again\u00a0under various post-Brexit legislation. What they hadn\u2019t countenanced was that the Scottish Parliament has a right to pass legislation and\u00a0then require Westminster to consent, rather than the traditional other way around.<\/p>\n
Already, Westminster back-tracked on the Sewell Convention being imbedded in law when the Supreme Court threw out the Article 50\u00a0challenge by the Scottish Government. Yet another Smith Commission recommendation that has proved meaningless.<\/p>\n
So the EU Continuity Bill has formally been introduced to the Scottish Parliament to protect devolution and prepare Scotland\u2019s laws for Brexit.\u00a0The Bill is being introduced after UK Government legislation was called \u201cincompatible with the devolution settlement\u201d by a cross-party\u00a0Holyrood committee.<\/p>\n
The Continuity Bill will come into effect if the Scottish Parliament decides not to consent to the EU Withdrawal Bill and will prevent what\u00a0ministers have described as a \u201cpower grab\u201d.\u00a0The Scottish Parliament will be asked to consider the introduction of the Continuity Bill as an Emergency Bill, to ensure that the Continuity\u00a0Bill is passed before the EU (Withdrawal) Bill becomes law.\u00a0\u00a0The purpose of the Continuity Bill is to ensure Scotland\u2019s laws will work properly on the day the UK leaves the EU.<\/p>\n
Michael Russell, the Minister for UK Negotiations on Scotland\u2019s Place in Europe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth the Scottish and Welsh Governments have today published EU Continuity Bills to protect devolution.\u00a0The Scottish Government is opposed to leaving the EU in line with the overwhelming majority of people in Scotland, but we have a duty to\u00a0prepare our laws for Brexit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have offered to work with the UK Government on UK-wide legislation to do this job but they are insisting on taking control of devolved\u00a0powers without the agreement of the Scottish Parliament.\u00a0We could never recommend giving consent to such a law and therefore we must make our own preparations in devolved areas to provide\u00a0certainty and to protect devolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the UK Government drops its power grab then it may still be possible to reach agreement, in which case we would not need\u00a0to proceed with the Continuity Bill.\u201d \u00a0The legality of the Scottish Government passing this kind of legislation will decided upon by the Lord Advocate but already\u00a0the Presiding Officer of the National Assembly of Wales has approved the Welsh Continuity Bill.<\/p>\n
The statement from the Scottish Parliament\u2019s Presiding Officer on legislative competence does not in any circumstance\u00a0prevent the Scottish Government from introducing or progressing any Bill \u2013 nor does it prevent the Scottish Parliament from\u00a0approving this Bill.<\/p>\n
Theresa May\u2019s de facto Deputy, David Lidington took to the Brexit Roadshow in a long line of UK Cabinet ministers stamping their authority\u00a0on the process of leaving the EU. Mr Lidington\u00a0has reportedly sent a warning shot to Nicola Sturgeon telling her Brexit must not be used as an excuse to break up the United\u00a0Kingdom. Prime Minister Theresa May’s ally said the UK is at a crossroads but severing ties would leave every one of the four nations\u00a0“weaker and poorer,\u201d even if Brexit has greater impact on Scotland than any of the other\u00a0\u2018home nations\u2019. In fact, referring to the UK as four nations is infuriating enough.Read More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2077,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions\/2077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}