Holyrood will get new powers only after mature talks, says Davidson
SCOTLAND will only be handed new powers following “mature discussions” with Westminster, Ruth Davidson has said.
The Scottish Conservative leader confirmed powers repatriated from Brussels will be handed to Westminster first, and the UK Government will decide how they should be distributed around the country.
Ms Davidson also reaffirmed Westminster’s exclusive right to permit referendums, insisting there is no appetite for this power to be permanently devolved to Holyrood.
The SNP has pressed Theresa May for a guarantee that any EU powers related to devolved matters, such as fishing and farming, should automatically revert to Holyrood.
But Ms Davidson told BBC Sunday Politics Scotland: “More powers will come, but in the first instance powers currently held by Brussels go back to the member state, and then mature discussions can happen about how they can best be (devolved) around the country.”
Nicola Sturgeon is also tentatively preparing a second independence referendum, with many in the nationalist grassroots anticipating an announcement at the SNP conference in Aberdeen this month.
But a new poll by BMG Research shows little support for a second referendum, with 51 per cent against a re-run before 2019.
Some analysts have predicted the SNP will instead call for further enabling legislation, such as the temporary power to hold a second referendum similar to the Edinburgh Agreement or even full devolution.
Ms Davidson said the Prime Minister recognises the “right to Scottish selfdetermination”, but that the current situation is different to 2011 when the SNP won a majority in parliament on a clear commitment to hold a referendum.
She said: “At the moment, when [Sturgeon] has no clear mandate, when she lost her majority, and the majority of Scots are saying they don’t want it, they shouldn’t have another referendum.”
Ms Davidson added: “The power for holding referendums is held at Westminster, so in terms of were a hypothetical, some time in the future, referendum to happen you would still need the process that happened last time around, which is an agreement between the two governments for those powers to pass over.
“If she wants to change that she should have put that forward as an idea in the Smith Commission.
“She didn’t, and neither did her party, say that the Scottish Parliament should be in charge of a future referendum, so I don’t think she can argue that now.”
A spokesman for Scotland’s Brexit Minister Michael Russell said: “We have a cast-iron democratic mandate for an independence referendum if that is the chosen route to protect our vital national interests. Ruth Davidson is apologist-in-chief for a Westminster Tory Government threatening to drag Scotland over the cliff edge of an economically catastrophic hard Brexit.”