Humiliation for Sturgeon – but she plots chaos
NICOLA Sturgeon suffered a humiliating blow yesterday as Supreme Court judges dismissed her demands for Scotland to have a veto on Brexit.
In their ruling, the 11 judges said ministers were ‘not legally compelled’ to grant devolved administrations a vote on triggering Article 50 – the formal mechanism for leaving the european Union.
Their conclusion that parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland did not have a right to a binding vote on eU membership provoked a furious reaction from Scotland’s First Minister and a renewed threat of a push towards a second independence referendum. Scottish Nationalists also vowed to bring forward 50 amendments to the legislation for leaving the eU in a bid to frustrate the process.
In an angry tirade, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘It is a damning indictment of a UK Government that believed it could press on towards a hard Brexit with no regard to Parliament whatsoever. SNP MPs will seek to work with others across the house of Commons to stop the march towards a hard Brexit in its tracks.
‘however, it is becoming clearer by the day that Scotland’s voice is simply not being heard or listened to within the UK. This raises fundamental issues above and beyond that of eU membership.’
Referring to David Mundell, Scotland’s sole Tory MP at Westminster, she added: ‘Is Scotland content for our future to be dictated by an increasingly Right-wing Westminster government with just one MP here, or is it better that we take our future into our own hands?
‘It is becoming ever clearer that this is a choice that Scotland must make.’
She said the British Government’s promises to uphold a political convention to consult members of the Scottish Parliament were ‘not worth the paper they are written on’.
Miss Sturgeon said the edinburgh parliament would table its own motion on Brexit despite the ruling. The administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland had demanded that their assemblies be formally asked to approve triggering Article 50. however the Supreme Court ruled that the Sewel Convention – in which devolved parliaments usually vote on any Westminster legislation that affects their pow- ers – only applies to domestic affairs and not foreign policy.
eleven Supreme Court justices, including two Scottish judges, said the longstanding convention that the UK’s three devolved parliaments had a right to vote on any Westminster legislation that affected their powers did not apply to eU membership.
Miss Sturgeon claimed the ruling exposed how weak the Sewel Convention was.
The First Minister said she would press the case for a com- promise deal on Scottish access to the eU when she meets Theresa May for Brexit talks at a joint ministerial committee on Monday.
SNP MPs also vowed to table 50 amendments in an attempt to derail the Article 50 bill. These will include calls for a White Paper to be published ahead of Brexit and an attempt to force the Government to seek unanimous agreement of the joint ministerial committee, made up of Westminster and the devolved administrations. Controversially, they also demanded that the current european Union membership be reinstated if a deal could not be struck with the european Commission on Brexit.
Political opponents were unimpressed with the Nationalist’s threat to revive the independence referendum.
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, said that it was now time for the SNP to ‘respect’ the referendum result and told Scottish nationalists to stop their ‘stunts’ to try to block Brexit.
She said: ‘Whatever side people were on last year, Scotland wants to get on with the negotiations so we can start to leave the uncertainty of the past few years behind us.
‘We have all had enough of the nationalists using every diversionary tactic they can to try to use Brexit to manufacture a case for separation.
‘The SNP needs to decide: does it want Britain’s renegotiation to succeed or fail?
‘If it is the former, it needs to end the attempts to sow division and add to the uncertainty we face, and instead get behind the attempt to get the right deal for the whole UK.’
The latest polls suggest Scotland’s appetite for independence has not grown since the last referendum was held in 2014, when Scots voted 55 per cent to 45 per cent to stay in the union.
‘Attempts to sow division’