It’s always panto

The SNP claim of standing up for a point of principle over the treatment of powers returning from the EU under Brexit is knowingly misleading. That principle is no longer about devolution as the SNP leadership implies.

The Welsh government was determined that devolution should be respected and has now accepted the UK Government’s compromise as reasonable, viewing it as going as far as is possible in defending devolution whilst still protecting the integrity of the UK.

Scotland’s First Minister, of course, has no concern about the integrity of the UK; indeed she hopes to undermine it. The principle being defended by the SNP now is the right to maintain this issue as a source of grievance in case Nicola Sturgeon eventually decides to call another independence referendum. On this, the First Minister is being unusually coy, because presumably she is not confident that the people of Scotland will move from what for her is the inconvenient fact that majority opinion favours Scotland’s positive place in the UK.

This attempt to engineer a constitutional crisis is therefore just in case Nicola Sturgeon decides to do something that she might very well not. It seems that for the SNP it is always the political pantomime season.

KEITH HOWELL West Linton, Peeblesshire