By Stephen Bailey

It is a constant allegation, thrown up and disseminated by the SNP and other anti-UK, pro-separation agitators, that ‘British nationalists’ and/or the UK Government are conspiring to abolish Holyrood ‘against the will of Scots’. As usual, however, the SNP are displaying their rank hypocrisy and dishonesty.

How can we abolish legislative devolution?

There are two main ways to resolve this matter in a successful, democratically valid way:

1. If public support for abolition of legislative devolution is consistently in the majority among Scots for a substantial period of time (I.e. is clearly the settled will of the majority of Scots), a UK political party could include the abolition of Holyrood and the other devolved legislatures (Holyrood, the Welsh ‘parliament’ and Stormont in Ulster) with an administrative devolution (to de-centralze power to the constituent parts of the UK) replacement in their manifesto for a future UK General Election. This could take the form of going straight to abolition if a mandate was given by winning the election, or by promising to hold a referendum as soon as it was practicable if elected, If this party won an election on a manifesto pledge to abolish legislative devolution, then that would give them a cast-iron democratic mandate to either abolish legislative devolution after winning the election (winning the election would give them the democratic mandate to do so) or hold a subsequent referendum which would decide the issue.

2. Build up public support for abolishing legislative devolution then when this shows consent majority support for a sustained period and is shown to be the settled will of the majority of Scots then the UK Government would be approached for a referendum to abolish or keep the Scottish Parliament.

Despite the fact that the devolved legislatures’ ability to break up the UK should actually be seen as a UK-wide matter, to have political legitimacy, the decision to dissolve Holyrood must be one taken by Scots.

Some anti-UK separatists have claimed that if there were to be a referendum on abolishing Holyrood, the question should be posed as a choice between abolishing Holyrood and Scotland leaving the UK. But they had their chance: now it’s our turn.

If successful, a positive referendum result that returned a majority for abolishing Holyrood would lead to the UK Parliament enacting a Scottish Parliament Dissolution Bill. And Holyrood would be gone, by the consent of Scots.

The same process of holding referenda then abolishing the devolved legislature if a majority in favour of the proposition is won could be undertaken in Ulster (‘Northern Ireland’) and Wales.

It must be remembered that Holyrood and the other devolved legislatures were themselves established after referenda were held, so it is only fair that they are abolished by such a method.

It is important to note that there is absolutely no requirement under the constitution to seek and receive the consent of the devolved legislatures beforehand. The democratic consent of the electorate of the devolved parts of the UK (Scotland, Wales and Ulster) is all that’s required to enact the abolition of legislative devolution. It also needs to be noted that it must be a UK political party that deals with the abolition of legislative devolution if consent is won from the majority of people in the devolved parts of the UK as the Constitution (under which devolution falls) is a reserved matter and only the UK Parliament has the constitutional power to abolish the devolved legislatures. Holyrood (and the other devolved legislatures) doesn’t have the ability under UK Constitutional Law to deal with this matter.

However, for either of these options to happen in the first place, it is ESSENTIAL that public support is demonstrated, primarily through opinion polling, but also through other activities, such as support from the media and from political figures.

It is most emphatically NOT being suggested that abolition should just be imposed on Scots (or the Ulish or the Welsh) by Westminster without their majority consent and anti-UK separatists are just showing their basic hypocrisy and dishonesty when they claim it is.

(Does not represent the view of Scotland Matters)