The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
SNP call to safeguard devolution Politics: Brexit ‘threatening principle’
Nicola Sturgeon has claimed Brexit is “threatening the underpinning principle” of devolution and called for a new crossparty consensus to boost Holyrood’s powers.
In a speech, marking the 20th anniversary of the 1997 referendum, Ms Sturgeon said she wanted to build consensus to safeguard the devolution settlement and to extend the Scottish Parliament’s powers.
She argued disagreement about “the final destina- tion” of devolution had not stopped parties working together to make progress for Scotland 20 years ago and should not do so now.
And she won qualified support from Labour, Greens and Liberal Democrats. Ms Sturgeon said: “The devolution settlement – the Scotland Act that established our parliament – is based on the principle that everything is automatically devolved unless it is reserved.
“The Withdrawal Bill turns that principle on its head. As it stands, it will mean that devolved policy areas such as agriculture, fishing and the environment, which are currently carried out at EU level, will be automatically reserved, unless the UK government decides to devolve.
“So, on the very day we should be celebrating devolution, we are being called upon to defend it.”
Scottish Labour interim leader Alex Rowley backed her call to resist a “Westminster power grab”, but called on her to use Holyrood’s tax-raising powers to tackle inequality.
He said: “Labour is the party of devolution, and we will not allow the Tories to use Brexit as a power grab.”