The Scottish Government have used apocalyptic language to justify the absolute necessity of the GRR Bill. Surely, therefore, London's veto of the Bill creates a "human rights emergency" that MUST now be addressed by an urgent push towards independence?So it's official. For the first time in the twenty-four year history of devolution, the UK Government will use an obscure power that was generally assumed to be merely theoretical to veto a law passed entirely properly by the elected Scottish Parliament. Not to
challenge it in the courts, but to literally
veto it with the flourish of a pen, thus putting Holyrood firmly in its place as a subordinate legislature - a far cry from the post-indyref claim that it was "the most powerful devolved parliament in the world". And although the veto is potentially subject to judicial review, the smart money is that the courts will uphold it.
Let me put this to the Scottish Government. You didn't think the loss of freedom of movement with European countries was a big enough emergency to warrant an urgent push towards independence. You didn't think the loss of access to the EU Single Market was a big enough emergency to warrant an urgent push towards independence. You didn't think Scotland's enforced exit from the EU customs union was a big enough emergency to warrant an urgent push towards independence. You didn't think the post-Brexit power-grab of devolved powers was a big enough emergency to warrant an urgent push towards independence. You didn't think London's disastrous mishandling of Covid, which needlessly cost hundreds of thousands of lives, was a big enough emergency to warrant an urgent push towards independence. You didn't think the importance of getting the post-Covid recovery right was a big enough emergency to warrant an urgent push towards independence. And you didn't even think the UK Government's grotesque priorities in the face of the cost of living crisis was a big enough emergency to warrant an urgent push towards independence.
But you've used some pretty apocalyptic language about the GRR Bill. Although it would have conferred legal rights that have never previously existed at any point in history, you have argued that, from this point on, the absence of those rights would be totally incompatible with basic human rights and basic human dignity. You have also argued that voters felt so strongly about the importance of those rights that they marched to the polling stations in May 2021 with the specific intention of rejecting the "bigoted" politicians who opposed the Bill. And yet without independence, there now seems to be no prospect of those rights ever reaching the statute book in the form that you want, especially in view of the cold water that the London Labour leadership have been suddenly chucking in your direction. Can we therefore assume that we now at last have a big enough emergency to warrant an urgent push towards independence? In your own terms: an emergency of the withholding of "basic human rights"? An emergency of the denial of "basic human dignity"? A democratic emergency where voters' "rejection of bigots" has been reversed by remote control from London? Surely it is now unconscionable to wait until 2026 to address these unprecedented emergencies?
Source: The Scottish Government have used apocalyptic language to justify the absolute necessity of the GRR Bill. Surely, therefore, London's veto of the Bill creates a "human rights emergency" that MUST now be addressed by an urgent push towards independence? (//)