THEY’RE AT IT AGAIN. As if they hadn’t done enough damage to Scotland, the Labour Party has commissioned a report from a group led by Gordon Brown that will recommend significant constitutional change. This will, apparently, include the further devolution of tax powers.
Why? In the light of the mess the SNP has made of the tax system, can someone please tell me why this would be a good idea? Perhaps Ian Murray MP, for whom I normally have great respect, can tell us why he supports the devolution of more economic powers, after the series of disasters already perpetrated by the SNP regime? When we look at what the SNP has done to Scotland, with its incompetence, false promises and poor choices, why would we want its leaders to have even more powers to create even more damage?
This has led me to ask: is this devolved Scotland really what we wanted or thought we would have when the vote took place in 1997?
We have always been told that devolution was a matter of democratic choice: Scots were clamoring for it, apparently, and so Scots must have it. Certainly, 74 per cent of those who did vote in 1997 voted for devolution, including my very reluctant self, but not my more sensible husband. That seems like massive endorsement. Yet the turnout in the referendum vote was 60 per cent. Two in five eligible Scots could not be bothered to vote in this allegedly vital and popular referendum. That means that a minority of those eligible to vote supported devolution, 44.7 per cent – a figure that bears a strange resonance. It is exactly the same as the number (on a very much higher turnout of 85 per cent) that voted to leave the UK in 2014.
The devolution settlement included giving Holyrood the power to vary the tax regime by plus or minus 3 per cent. A majority (not including me) of those who did vote voted for tax-varying powers, although, taking the turnout into account, the percentage of those eligible to vote who supported this was 38.1 per cent. The issue of having a variable tax regime was one of the few details we were given when we voted for or against devolution in 1997.
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