Brexit and Devolution. Turns Out You Can't Have Them Both

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-scottish-parliament-legal-right-block-article-50-a7438246.html

Please forgive the Independent's choice of image for a Scottish Constitutional lawyer...and read the piece. It seems that the legal question as to whether the Scottish Parliament has a vote on invoking article 50 or not comes down to a definition of the word "normally." Normally, you see, Scotland's parliament has to give assent to Westminster measures that will change Scottish Law. Which Brexit would clearly do. Times a million. Or three.

So the UK government's argument is that like a war, Brexit is an emergency. It is not normal. (At this point, I'm attempting, and failing, to resist the comment that, No...it's not normal...it's fecking MENTAL...)

But the only thing that makes Article 50 an emergency measure to be steamrollered over the top of devolution...is preventing the Scottish Parliament from having a vote on this matter in the first place. Devolution, which we had thought to be a stable element of the British Constitution (or at least the set of practices and precedents that substitute for such a foreign sounding thing) turns out instead to be the cause of an emergency and so must be effectively cancelled in the meantime.

Supporters of the Union who treasure the achievements of devolution...ie everyone but the Tories and Tam Dayell, theoretically ...should pause to reflect that when the UK has grown up business before it...that devolution can be easily suspended. Power devolved is only a loan that is only good while circumstances permit.

"Normally" of course we'd let you have a say...but not when it really matters, appears to be the message.

This is I think, part of the developing constitutional crisis that Brexit represents. Despite the static opinion polls for Indy Ref 2, and despite the consequence that a second independence referendum is very unlikely by 2019 when all this is supposed to have happened, in the longer term there seems to be no way for the current "devolved settlement" of the "British Constitution" to survive, no matter what happens in the Supreme Court today.

It is probably part of the same set of masturbatory nostalgia fantasies that led to Brexit in the first place that the distasteful spectacle of devolution to the provinces be done away with. If they ever give it a moment's thought, there is no question in my mind that Farage and Co want to erase as a bad dream Devolution to Jockland along with Human Rights and the Barnett formula. Lord Lawson, indeed, mused aloud that Ireland might want to re-join a post Brexit UK. There really is no bottom limit to the stupidity of these people.

What really matters for us though, is this: It turns out you can have Brexit or you can have Scottish Devolution. You can't have both. Not "normally."

My feeling is that this is going to become clearer and clearer to the electorate in Scotland, and sometime before 2030, we are going to be faced wityh the chopice between fully amalgamating ourselves back into the pre-devolutionary (pre Suez!) fantasy land of cream cakes and Union Jack bunting...or of getting the hell out.

Or do those who campaigned quite honourably for a No vote in 2014 and a Remain vote in 2016 really think it is sustainable in the long term to give their support to the creation of The New England that is being dreamed of by those with the whip hand of UK politics right now? More specifically, if it did ever come to a vote in the Scottish Parliament, I can quite see that the SNP and Greens would vote against invoking article 50 and the Tories would vote for it. The real question is what would Labour and the Liberals do? Would they vote with the Scottish government to preserve the relationship with the EU, or vote with the Tories in favour of the Union at any economic or moral cost - including the relegation of the devolution settlement that THEY created to the sidelines of the new "normality". Or would they actually retreat so far from responsibility or principle as to actually abstain?

Place your bets and pass the popcorn.

-- 

Peter Arnott

ONE LAST THROW OF THE DICE

Earlier this week, in an act of possibly futile civic optimism, I wrote a piece which argued, essentially, for an inter-party deal that could, I think, maybe, just…offer a workable way forward for Scotland within the context of the Brexit negotiations…if and when we get past the phony war phase we’re in now.

Roughly it was this. 1) Scottish Labour accept that there is no longer a viable way that Scotland can remain in the EU single market via the UK.  John McDonnell, by removing the Parliamentary obstacle that might have been offered by the UK Labour Party, has sunk that particular boat.

(this was what prompted my writing the piece…just to get the timeline in there)

2) Labour then have to accept that the only way forward for Scotland in this context is a distinctive Scottish Strategy…and fully accept that the SNP government have a mandate for leading that strategy, but that they and the Greens (and the liberals, actually) can strengthen that case by getting properly, fully on board with it.

3) I then suggested, in recognition that this would be a huge culturally abhorrent pill for the "others"  to swallow, that the SNP might consider, reciprocally, in exchange, agreeing to park the independence project (specifically Indyref 2) at least until we make a decent fist of trying to get through the imminent crisis together. 

This last point, of course, was where I expected to get pelters.  And by gum, they have indeed been coming my way.  However, picking the cow-pat out of my hair, even after the bust up in Holyrood, even after the fragile consensus on a strategy for Brexit fell apart with both sides screaming habitual abuse at each other, I do feel I have to struggle to my feet and give one last desperate throw of the federal dice.

I have talked to ardent Nats now about this, and to ardent Labour people. (Yes, it is still just possible to invade the enemy’s algorithms) And both are, I think, still open to some sort of conversation.  Neither one really want to see a Hard Brexit. Neither really want, I don’t think, (he said, reaching for the tin helmet again) a second referendum whose result is uncertain in a context that is already scarier and less predictable than anything I can remember. So neither would really lose from a time limited Brexit truce which would necessarily park Indyref 2 until the next electoral tests.

And what both need to bear in mind is that the others haven’t gone away.  They’re not going to go away.  Magical thought will not eliminate either one of them. Not until the next elections in Scotland and Westminster in 2020 and 2021. 

It is just until then that I’m suggesting a truce. After all, it was Churchill who said of Stalin that he would give Satan a favourable reference in the House of Commons if it would help to beat Hitler. And it was the third question in 2014, the one that the Tories made sure would never get asked, the Federal question, that still commands support across the board, across the tribes.

When article 50 is invoked in a few month, the phony war is over. Brexit happens. Hard Brexit.  All across the UK without any distinction.  And we ALL lose. And by ALL, I don’t just mean the respective activists for Yes and No in 2014.  I mean everyone who lives here.

Labour need to accept that there MUST be a Scottish solution…and the SNP need to accept that this MUST be Federal.  That’s it.  That’s the ball game.

So we need a truce to fight the greater enemy.  It doesn’t have to last forever.  In 2020 and 2021, we can get back in the groove of mutiual contempt. I am suggesting in the meantime we get serious about at least TRYING to come up with a United Front that will push the UK parliament into taking account of our position, and that will convince the EU negotiators that we are worth talking to about a Federal Brexit where Scottish Trade and Immigration policies, for example, are not trapped by Tory infighting into the heavily pensioned wet dreams of Nigel Farage. 

It’s still, only just, worth one more push.  But both the SNP and Labour will, if they’re serious, need to take some sacred Highland cows out the back and shoot them.

Finally, remember that episode of the West Wing where Toby managed to put together an in camera bi-partisan committee to save Social Security…but had to maneuver both sides into doing it by the back door? I know that’s fiction…but give that episode a watch.

It can be done, I think.  And if it can’t, maybe “we” – the chattering classes of Scotland - deserve whatever shit is about to pour on our heads.

Biting the Bullet

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37983948?post_id=10205211307815167_10208721574089630#_=_

In response to the utter meltdown within the government over Brexit as reported in the Times today, John McDonnell for the Labour opposition is making a speech in which he will powerfully urge the government to have a nice Brexit that is nice to people and not a nasty one that is just plain nasty to everyone cos that wouldn't be nice. He is , of course, not opposing Brexit as such but he'd like it to be nice please if you wouldn't mind. He will not do anything nasty like vote against the government or anything icky like that.

It is a bad joke. There is no opposition to a government that is falling apart with its own incoherence...and both Labour and the Tories fall back on protecting their respective electoral bases from UKIP...while Farage is being interviewed over a Full English Brexit by Piers Morgan on exactly how Theresa May should butter up Trump in order to save British Trade from jumping off a cliff.

It is surely obvious to the most benighted, SNP hating member of Scottish Labour that there is nothing to be looked for from the Mother of Parliaments. The government will press ahead with an entirely unscrutinized reflex spasm of an invocation of Article 50 simply because they can think of no better way to cover their own divisions...and UK Labour will go along with it because some of them think it's what Tony Benn would have wanted, and some of them think they'll get their party back when Corbyn fucks up the next election...

Even if Corbyn WINS the next election, Brexit will go essentially unchallenged. There is no solution to this except a Scottish solution. Everyone must see that.

So...there will be those who yell for Indy Ref 2 now...as if that would save us...but it won't work...the electorate will simply not stand for it, not in times like these, not with this level of uncertainty. In the long term, with luck and good management, we are looking at a future of energy self sufficiency from which we can negotiate our way in the world with some possibility of success. But right now? Independence by 2020 after a second referendum is a pipe dream and a distraction from what is actually happening to these actual islands of the coast of actual Europe across the water from an actual President Trump.

So what i propose is this. Starting right now, today, in the Scottish parliament debate on Brexit, we start to work towards an accommodation between the SNP and Scottish Labour. (Yes...I know, pigs might fly...but Hillary might lose the election...okay?)

Take a deep breath...and starting today, right now, in the debate on Brexit at Holyrood today, at the risk of thinking outside the box, we have to ask Scotland's politicians to do better, to think beyond their tribal bases and assumprions about each other...and bite the constitutional bullet

Scottish Labour have to accept that only a strong Scottish negotiating position in collaboration with others in these islands can secure our future relationship with both Europe and the UK being on anything like bearable terms. On immigration, on trade, on tourism, on energy, we have to be FUNCTIONALLY independent from UK policy. Now...you can call that what you like...federalism or a New Union...I don't give a damn, i really don't. There HAS to be a united negotiating position...which means that Scottish Labour HAVE to get behind Nicola Sturgeon one hundred percent, in public as well as quietly...and actually exercise that autonomy that they were granted (without thinking about it) by Jeremy Corbyn.

And in return, the SNP have to agree to park Independence. Yes. Not just Indyref 2 before 2020...the SNP have to undertake here and now to park any move towards Independence until a fresh mandate is sought in the Westminster elections in 2020 and the next Scottish Election in 2021.

That's the only possible deal. That's the only way both parties can serve the people who elected them, and who voted on both sides of the referendum debate. That's the way they can both serve Scotland. But they both have to do it and they both have to mean it. Or we're screwed.

What the Hell are We Supposed to Do Now?

After two hours sleep...this may ramble a little....

Remember on morning after the Brexit vote? Remember the morning after the Scottish referendum? This is so much worse, isn't it? This feels so much more irredeemable, like being handed a prison sentence from which there is no appeal for a crime you never even heard of, far less committed. I suppose it's partly the helplessness of it being someone else's election, plus the humiliation of being so completely wrong about the outcome, that no amount of fact checking or evidence could overcome fear and bigotry and "truthiness". Above all, it is the feeling that the anglo-saxon world , just as it led the way into globalization in the 1980s, is now leading the way into an era of...well...what? Self harm? Toxic delusion? Actual honest to God fascism?

We don't know. We have no way of knowing. Just as with Brexit, the election of Donald Trump is not so much a political decision as a spasm, an ill-fated lashing out, a fore-doomed vote for a Time Machine back to the fifties...despite the laws of physics, let alone the softer sciences of economics and history. Like the Glasgow taxi driver, a man in his sixties, who told me he had voted Leave in June because he wanted to see "full employment come back to the Clyde", you're left not knowing what to say...it would almost be an act of cruelty to tell the poor bastard what you're thinking, tell him what he's done to the grandchildren he wanted to help find decent jobs for life...the way it used to be.

Trump's voters too are looking at the world through Orange-tinted glasses, ludicrous and tragic all at once...voting for change, for agency, for some sense of purpose in a world whose elite are as detached from everyday reality for most of the people who live in America, in Britain...in the world...as were the high officials of the medieval church....talking to each other in Latin about the trans-national global world which only they were qualified to understand.

The very language the elite speak, let alone the "left" (if such a term is still meaningful) is as dead as a door nail

There is little point yet in speculating about what trump is actually going to do with this mandate. I'm sure he has no idea. He wasn't elected because of policies. He hasn't seriously prepared for this any more than Boris Johnson seriously prepared for Brexit. Besides, he's demonstrably psychotic...he has been laying bare his paranoid, self hating Stalin-esque pathology for us every day for 18 months. All we can predict, very comfortably, having had a head start after the Brexit vote, is that anyone who attempts to apply logic or law or any other suspect form of cleverness to public policy in America for the next four years..is going to be loudly denounced as an enemy of the people.

But again, as with Brexit, thanks to the founding fathers this time...we get a period of phony war, of strictly time limited transition on which to try to position ourselves and take a few wild guesses as to what happens after inauguration, or Article 50...whichever comes first.

Because , make no mistake, the Brexiteers have just acquired a very powerful ally. Nigel Farage is now incomparably the best connected , most influential politician in Britain. Just as Vladimir Putin is incomparably the best placed player of what we used to call "The Great Game"

And if that doesn't give you a clue as to what happens next, consider this...if we can't predict what Trump will do, we can make a much more educated guess as to what the Republicans in congress and Theresa May will do. (for starters) The Republicans will; rally round a President who is not really one of them, but with whom they share a few key, very dangerous delusions...one of which is climate change, and others of which are unfree trade and unfree women. While our woman in number 10 will get back on a plane when she's back from India and go and do some very serious bum sucking. An isolationist America which hates the very notion of Europe as a rival world and economic power is about to become the best friend Brexit Britain could hope for.

As for us? On the left? We are all Jeremy Corbyn now. Self regarding, irrelevant and ludicrous. We totally missed this boat. The collapse of globalisation turns out to be a gift for the populist, isolationist right, from the Taliban to Trump and not to smart ass little weasels like us...who share a language of internationalist privilege with the Clintons of this world who turned out to be our best defense. Any notion on the left of coming out of this stronger, or even with a game plan, seems like masturbatory hubris this morning.

The world is in for four years of darkness...so are we. And Scottish Independence? In a word as dangerous as this one has just become? On a pre-Brexit timetable? Don't be fucking ridiculous. Indy ref 2 has now definitively receded back beyond the election in 2020...when, just maybe, Michele Obama will be back to deliver us.

And by then, I suspect, we'll already be well advanced on Plan B...whatever that turns out to be. I suspect, I fear...it's going to be a long, dark haul through a world of shit.

.

We might not need the Tippex

It starts off as a thought experiment...as a bit of mischief even. What if Scotland, with Northern Ireland and Gibraltar, and the Channel Islands...and all the other territorialy distinct bits of the UK that voted to Remain in the EU...REMAIN in the EU by the simple expedient of remaining in the UK...while England and Wales leave? What if England and Wales leave the UK on the same day they leave the EU, and the rest of us stay exactly where we are...in both?

Now, this is amusing enough, if only to imagine the columns that Simon Heffer and Alan Cochrane (inter alia) would write about it, straining every apoplectic muscle in their thundering "how dare you!"

But actually...no...think about it. Game it out, as they say. From the point of view of the EU, with whom a "successor relationship" with the UK will have to emerge, what would be actually wrong with forming a relationship with a successor state? With, as people have been pointing out, nothing more required than a couple of bottles of Tippex to alter all those treaties?

In the first place, such a new arrangement would respect the results of both referenda, in 2014 and 2016. Scotland voted to Remain in both the UK and the EU. If "we" become the successor state (in some arrangement or other) then both objectives are achieved. And England and Wales face the historical consequence that for Britain, EU membership was the successor to Empire as to how "we" kept our "place in the world." To abandon the EU when you haven't got an Empire any more is an act of deluded, senile self harm to which there is no reason why anyone who didn't vote for it would want to be party.

Second, there were many people on the side of Yes in 2014 who campaigned not on the basis of Scottish Exceptionalism, but because we valued the inclusiveness of the idea of Britain as it existed, however tenuously, from 1945 until (pick an historical moment) the defeat of the miners - the enemy within - in 1985. Devolution in Scotland derives its entire purpose from self defense against the Tories and their vision of Britain as some kind of off-shore hellhole of cheap labour and gated privilege. Self defense flirted with self-determination from 2007 onward, I suppose, culminating in the 2014 vote...

But once again, recent developments go to show that Breaking Up Britain was always too big a job for the Scots. It was always a job for the English.

Well, now it's happened. The Brexit vote has done it. We are not leaving the UK, we are being left. Why not make it official? And respect the democratic mandate of the people of England and Wales to leave the EU...as well as the vote in Scotland to remain in both.

If the UK really is a partnership of equals, I can see no logical objection. If the UK is just "Greater England"...well, that's something else again. Rather in the same way as Yugoslavia, despite Milosevic, turned out to be something other than Greater Serbia.

As for the objection that Scotland would be swapping a free trade relationship with the rUK for a free trade relationship with the EU, the rUK has been at pains recently to insist that it wants Free Trade as far as possible with the EU...and we'd be in the EU..so that would include us and our smoked salmon, wind power and single malts.

And all those companies in London...like banks and pension funds...for whom the EU relationship is vital, who have got already, a lot of them, branch offices in Edinburgh and Dublin...all they're got to do is move their head offices (and their tax obligations) a wee bit to the North and West...and they'll still get to speak English...

So that would take care of the "London" problem...a small shift in the admin and most of the jobs can stay in that great and exciting city...which will remain, as it must, an economic hub. Well, it's either that or move the whole lot to Frankfurt and Paris...

Wales...? That's a bit sad. But democracy is democracy, and we are all about respecting the vote.

Now all this pipe dreaming really comes about because no less established and establishment) a boffin as Strathclyde Uni's own, inimitable John Curtice, allowed himself to do some thinking aloud on this topic in the Sunday Herald. And I've been posting a bit about it on social media. (In fact, I got a tweet this morning from a chap called Gordon Innes pointing out that the "Scots/Irish successor state to the UK" in the EU could also take Britain's seat on the UN security council. So we could! We've got the Nukes!)

But seriously for a moment...if maintaining Scotland's place in the EU is the aim of our negotiators in the Brexit process, and minimum disruption is the aim of the EU negotiators...then mightn't this idea have some legs? Might it even be slightly LESS crazy than London, Scotland, Northern Ireland and all the overseas and island territories being dragged out of Europe against their interests as well as their expressed democratic decision?

Maybe there's more to this idea than mischief. We might not even need the Tippex.