Scrapping over dog’s Brexit

I’d happily grab a banner and take to the barricades on London denying Scotland postbrexit powers, as readers know, but it would be lonely up there. Most of us do not care. As Brexit already feels like rummaging through your own viscera, worrying about the fate of the short intestine more than the long one seems like prolonging the agony.

The UK has got it itself into a bloody tangle and the details are dull.

Nicola Sturgeon might be right – she probably is – it’s just that the people show no sign of being outraged.

Columns I have written trying to incite uproar have been met with polite silence – I get it, I get it.

Which is why the Holyrood statement on Brexit powers was so odd.

Mike Russell, doing his best Toad of Toad Hall display as minister for getting stuff for Scotland aff those nasty Tories, went through the motions, but lacked conviction on the punchline – that Scotland would still do no deal.

In the chamber, the Tory MSP Adam Tomkins suggested that Russell would have signed, but was ordered to do no such thing by his boss, Nicola Sturgeon.

It was a good intervention – plausible enough to make it a talking point.

As it stands, Scotland would get the power it asked for but the first minister rails against the UK Government’s insertion of a seven-year sunset clause in the deal.

This would give UK ministers seven years to override Holyrood before the Scottish Government had full control.

Still with me? Lost the will to live? There’s more of this you know.

Tomkins might also have asked – are you really going to push this the whole way? Also cheeky, but a question with form.

The Scottish Government rarely, if ever, delivers on its threats about the constitution.

Instead it is very able at making a lot of noise to help negotiations, and then pretty shrewd at agreeing a deal.

As the rest of Scotland only pays attention to constitutional matters when the SNP is in high dudgeon, the party and government switches in and out of “outrage” gear as it suits.

All signs suggested it had switched out of outrage.

Sturgeon went to Downing Street two months ago and spoke afterwards about a deal being possible.

Almost certainly at that meeting the prime minister metaphorically opened a briefcase full of money and showed the FM the contents.

More powers basically translates as more money.

We all know the £350 million to the NHS promise was wrong, but Brexit does mean money spent by the EU will now be spent by the UK and the devolved parliaments.

The PM will also have said, we are basically giving you what you want – which is broadly true. The Scottish Government began the negotiations saying powers must come to Holyrood, and the current negotiated settlement does indeed send powers north.

The caveat, the sunset clause, is just the UK’S negotiating red line, made clear on day one, and still clear today.

Which may explain why the Welsh government, also in a state of high moral outrage just two months ago, has reversed its position and approved the deal this week. Sturgeon’s move back into “Scotland Says No” is a hard one to explain.

She is resisting money when the Scottish Government is already borrowing to the max while seeing services decay.

As the Scottish Government will be able to decide where that money goes – it will not be bound by EU rules anymore – some of it could help in other budgetary areas. The sunset clause may limit this freedom, but not entirely.

My bet is that she is gambling on more Lords defeats for the EU Withdrawal Bill, a possible Tory revolt, and the whole process hitting the skids.

In that scenario she would look like the protector of the one true grail, the irreversible path to Scottish sovereignty. I’d also bet that the process will not hit the skids – the UK must fumble its way out of the EU, no matter, which means it has to ultimately approve the EU Withdrawal Bill and the related devolution of powers.

If Sturgeon stays on this course, she is heading for a constitutional clash which would be played out in the courts, where power clearly lies with sovereign parliament, Westminster.

If it got that far, Scotland would lose, and the great force of Scottish outrage in winning Holyrood new powers would for ever be punctured.

PA. Picture: Mike Russell insists the SNP government would not approve Tory terms for postbrexit powers.