The SNP constantly let the cat out of the bag on how they and other anti-UK separatists view legislative devolution (Holyrood, Stormont in Ulster and the Welsh ‘parliament’). They have: demanded that the UK Government provide a ‘mechanism’ that would automatically trigger a referendum on separating Scotland from the rest of the UK, as exists with the Ulster (‘Northern Ireland’) legislative devolution set up; demanded that powers be transferred to Holyrood so that it can decide when a separation referendum can be held and demanded full fiscal autonomy (non-exhaustive list).

Legislative Devolution in Scotland: the Path to Breaking up the UK?

This tells you all you need to know about the separatists and their attitude towards the current legislative devolution constitutional arrangements. They see it as merely a path towards their agenda of breaking up the UK. They won’t try to make it work and it’s pointless assuming they ever will. Consequently, Blair’s whole legislative devolutionary laws are pointless as the anti-UK separatists, especially the SNP, are never going to accept the ‘settlement’ and will just keep trying to manipulate it in a pathological, monomaniacal way as a tool to progress their separatist agenda.

The same is true in Ulster, where Irish separatists IRA/Sinn Fein have obtained the First Minister position and used the vastly enhanced ability this gifts them to push for separation referenda to remove Ulster from the UK and place it under Dublin control.

The situation isn’t as bad in Wales, but Welsh separatists Plaid Cymru have become increasingly bellicose in their demands for separation referenda, encouraged by the activities of the anti-UK separatists in the other devolved parts of the UK, especially the SNP in a kind of knock-on ‘domino effect’.

Blair’s Constitutional Vandalism

At the inception of Blair’s constitutional vandalism nearly three decades ago, its proponents constantly assured its critics that there was ‘no way’ that it could be used to break up the UK and it was even asserted by Labour politician George Robertson in 1995 that legislative devolution would ‘kill nationalism [read separatisn] stone dead’. In Scotland, the Scotland Act of 1998 laid out precisely that Westminster reserved certain policy areas for its sole consideration and Holyrood had no competency to pass laws or debate them (the reserved remit). All other policy areas could be debated and legislated on by Holyrood (the devolved remit). The devolution settlement in Ulster is characterized by a unique system where administrative powers are divided into three categories: reserved, excepted, and transferred. Transferred powers are controlled by the Northern Ireland Assembly, while reserved and excepted powers remain within the remit of the UK government. In Wales, the Conferred Powers Model of devolution, which limited the devolved legislature’s competence to powers specifically granted to it in statute was replaced by the Reserved Powers Model in 2017, which allowed the Welsh ‘parliament’ to pass laws on any matter not reserved for Westminster (just as in Scotland). Thus, there was a system of remits that laid out in black and white which areas of policy the executives of the devolved parts of the Union could debate and legislate on and that was supposed to make it ‘impossible’ for anti-UK separatism (the SNP in Scotland, IRA/Sinn Fein plus the SDLP in Ulster and Plaid Cymru in Wales) to break up the UK.

This is not what’s happened in practice though. In Scotland, at least since the SNP displaced Labour as the dominant power at Holyrood in 2007, we’ve witnessed constant interference by the separatists in reserved matters that they have no business even talking about, far less passing legislation on. There has been a constant stream of Holyrood debating and even passing legislation on reserved matters like ‘independence’ which comes under the ‘Constitutional affairs’ heading, a reserved matter and Brexit which comes under the ‘international trade/ relations’ heading, another reserved matter.

So, why is Holyrood even debating ‘independence’, far less passing bills concerning it and pressing for referenda on it? Added to this, why is the UK Government not enforcing the remit system? Why does it allow the anti-UK separatists to abuse the remit system to such a monumental degree? It’s irrelevant that separation is the raison d’être of the SNP (or IRA/Sinn Fein and the SDLP or Plaid). They simply have no business getting involved in reserved matters under UK Constitutional Law.

It has become clear now that this concept of reserved matters, that is, matters which can only be discussed by the House of Commons and the Lords and not the devolved executives, has been revealed by the real-life experience of the last three decades of legislative devolution to be nothing more than a constitutional fiction.

Anti-UK separatists, especially, but not exclusively, the SNP, don’t appear to understand this principle of constitutional law and have abused their devolved remit by ignoring its boundaries and acting like they are a sovereign national parliament instead of just a sub-national layer of administration, getting involved in matters that they shouldn’t, according to the law, like the Constitution. Consequently, legislative devolution hasn’t worked and won’t work in the presence of such an aggressive separatist movement. The only realistic solution to this is to completely abolish Blair’s disastrous legislative devolutionary constitutional ‘settlement’ and replace it with its administrative equivalent.

The Ever Increasing Remit of Devolution

There is a clear discernible pattern in the process of the development of legislative devolution over the last twenty-five plus years that the various UK executives (Holyrood, the Welsh ‘parliament’ and Stormont) have, virtually since the beginning, been engaged in a process of expanding the limits of their devolved remit by demanding and getting, more and more powers transferred to them from the House of Commons. It’s got to the point that Scotland now has the largest amount of power of any devolved part of a country anywhere in the World since the 2016 Scotland Act passed through the Commons and that includes Catalonia in Spain and Quebec in Canada.

Ulster is on a similar, though slightly less accelerated, path of the expansion of its executive’s power.

Wales too has seen a large increase in powers being transferred to its executive.

All these alleged ‘limited power’ assemblies are engaged in a stealth programme of the incremental increase in their devolved executive’s power.

Why? What’s the real agenda? It would probably seem to most observers that the obvious danger to the UK’s constitutional integrity comes from anti-UK separatists (the SNP in Scotland, Plaid Cymru in Wales and IRA/Sinn Fein plus the SDLP) holding, and winning, an independence referendum. After all, real experience would appear to bear this out, as there was such a referendum in Scotland on independence in 2014. Of course, there is a considerable degree of danger from such referenda, and those who want to maintain the Union would obviously be very well advised to prepare to counter this threat. Eternal vigilance (of anti-UK separatist attempts to break up the UK) is the price of maintaining the Union. All those who want to maintain the Union must never forget this or become complacent.

Towards a UDI?

However, a more in-depth look into this matter reveals another, more worrying, reason behind all this. Thinking outside the box and more deeply about their motives is required. Of course, the anti-UK separatists will always attempt to force their part of the UK towards independence by the obvious referendum route. But if you think about history, certain parts of countries have become independent of each other by simply declaring themselves to be so, without being formally granted this status by the other part of the country they are splitting from. In other words, they’ve made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). Look at the former Yugoslavia, for example.

There’s a substantial danger of this happening in the UK. By far, the greatest threat of this comes from SNP-dominated Scotland. Legislative devolution was always presented by its supporters as just a one-off event (although Welsh Labour MP Ron Davies was honest enough to admit in January 1999 that ‘Devolution is a process and not an event’, emphasizing that the initial devolution settlement would evolve over time, granting more powers to the Welsh Assembly). However, reality has been very different. In the years since legislative devolution has been enacted, there has been a more or less continuous process of various powers being devolved to Holyrood. Indeed, Scotland has the highest amount of autonomous power of any devolved region anywhere in the world, including Quebec in Canada and Catalonia in Spain.

The legislative devolutionary remit system set up by Blair just isn’t working. Separatism, especially, but not exclusively, the SNP just ignores it and uses devolution as a tool to advance its separation obsession. This is undeniable, as we’ve seen a constant stream of debates about ‘independence’, bills have been passed about it at Holyrood and there has even been a referendum on it forced into happening by the SNP when opinion polling showed public support for it was only in the 25%-28% range. What’s more, the ongoing process of the incremental transfer of powers from Westminster to the devolved executives, especially Holyrood, is an ongoing process that could lead to the devolved parts of the UK, especially Scotland, accruing so many powers that they have the ability to govern themselves and a separatist dominated devolved executive (especially Holyrood), could simply Unilaterally Declare Independence (UDI). How can this be stopped?

The SNP Only Wants One Thing

The SNP are monomaniacal in their pursuit of separating Scotland from the rest of the UK. They are never going to give up on it. Just voting them out of office won’t cure the problem as they can just regain office at a later date and begin their pursuit of separation all over again. As long as Holyrood exits, this is always going to be a potential problem. It’s only legislative devolution that has enabled anti-UK separatism to rise to power and pursue separation with greatly enhanced ability. It’s time to stop pretending this isn’t happening, take our head out of the sand, and solve the problem by the only viable way it’s possible to do so-abolish Holyrood and the Ulster and Welsh devolved legislatures.

(Does not represent the view of Scotland Matters)