It’s not too late to fix this Brexit power grab mess

BREXIT has thrown up so many constitutional challenges that it is easy to overlook what would otherwise be considered constitutional chaos.

The so-called “power grab” under which Westminster retains policy-making responsibilities that would otherwise be under the Scottish Parliament, even against the wishes of Holyrood, has succeeded in uniting opposition parties in Scotland and handing the nationalists a peg of grievance on which to hang claims for a further independence referendum.

Now they are claiming that Holyrood only have powers at the discretion of the UK Government. But it is not too late to fix this mess.

I have argued that Scotland is not stable, that because of Brexit we have to strengthen the devolution settlement, and that the Government must be careful to avoid scoring own goals – in this case Westminster pushing this through without doing everything in their power to secure agreement.

Implementing Brexit without undermining the devolution settlements was never going to be easy but the Government’s initial approach was cack-handed.

Many policy areas, such as agriculture and fisheries, that are currently administered by Europe, are formally devolved to Scotland.

After Brexit, European law will no longer be applied. There were 150 areas initially identified as potentially affected, though the list has now been narrowed down to a couple of dozen that are significant.

The principles of the Scottish and Welsh devolution settlements are that matters not specifically reserved are devolved. So Scottish and Welsh administrations could have reasonably expected these