11 December 2016

The Guardian: Brexit and the new devolution crisis: what are the issues?

In the supreme court, Northern Ireland QCs and Scotland’s lord advocate argued it was not only MPs and peers in Westminster who deserved consultation, but also devolved legislatures in Stormont and Edinburgh. [...]

Politically, this all reflects the referendum’s varying results up and down the country. “We are a united Kingdom in name only,” said the London Labour MP and remain campaigner Chuka Umunna.

Legally, Brexit has opened a constitutional can of worms. “Britain has two sovereignty problems: one relating to the internal sovereignty of Westminster over the regions of the United Kingdom, and the other external, the relationship between Westminster and the European institutions,” says Sir David Edward, a Scottish former judge at the European court of justice. [...]

“The most interesting question concerns exclusive and shared EU competencies that will be repatriated by Brexit, but are they to be exercised by Scotland as devolved competencies?” asked Edward. “Does it mean that when powers are repatriated in relation to fisheries, that the Scottish government and parliament acquire exclusive competencies, because none of them are reserved, or will the UK be able to re-reserve some of the competencies that are coming back?”



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