The constitutional battle, which may well end up in the supreme court in July, centres around the C-word. Since its inception the Holyrood parliament needs to pass a legislative consent motion any time Westminster wants to introduce legislation in areas that are devolved. Under the withdrawal bill Westminster is only offering to consult, rather than seek consent. And, it adds in a less than winning rider, we will go ahead if you agree, and we will go ahead if you don’t. [...]
But this is not merely a debate about the dry legal niceties. Under governments of various political hues, the Scottish government has forged a path distinct from that of its Commons cousins. It has just passed social security legislation that veers sharply from the punitive model of the Department for Work and Pensions. Previously it spent a small fortune mitigating the effects of the “bedroom tax”. It pioneered legislation on free personal care for the elderly, a smoking ban in public places, and minimum pricing for alcohol. It has comprehensively more ambitious politics on renewable energy. Its NHS has not been atomised or privatised and its education system has not embraced the academy or free school model. You can legitimately debate the quality of Scottish services, but not that they are philosophically distant from the worlds of Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Scotland voted by almost two to one to remain in the EU. Its legislators have not forgotten that they were told the only way to protect EU membership was to vote no in the 2014 independence referendum. They are acutely conscious of the potential damage of Brexit to core Scottish interests such as agriculture, fishing, financial services and biotechnology as well as exports of whisky and other branded products. The Tories like to pretend Tuesday’s vote was all about another bid for independence. But it wasn’t a bid to grab more power for Scotland. It was a bid to prevent Westminster stripping Holyrood of its existing powers.
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