[SCOT goes POP!] Yes, I'm giving constitutional advice to George Foulkes, and I'm doing it *deliberately*

[ALBA-Bot]

Yes, I'm giving constitutional advice to George Foulkes, and I'm doing it *deliberately*

His Eminence Baron Sir Lord Georgie Foulkes on Twitter yesterday - 

Next project is to look at how we can get an early election to Holyrood if the SNP lose a majority of seats at Westminster. Any advice from constitutional experts would be welcome.

— George Foulkes (@GeorgeFoulkes) February 27, 2024

Now I'm certainly not claiming to be a constitutional expert, but I don't really need to be because this is a remarkably simple question.  The date of the next Holyrood election is set by law as 7th May 2026.  That date can only be changed in certain narrow circumstances that are also specified by law:

1) If the First Minister resigns, and no successor is selected by the Scottish Parliament within 28 days, an early election is triggered.

2) If two-thirds of MSPs vote for dissolution, an early election is triggered.

3) There is small discretion for the Presiding Officer (or technically the King acting on the Presiding Officer's advice) to change the date of the election by up to a month in either direction.

You'll note that unelected Westminster legislators like George have absolutely no part to play in any of these possibilities, and in any case it's far from clear why he thinks the outcome of a Westminster election should make an early Holyrood election any more or less likely.

So the only constitutional option open to him and his colleagues is to change the law, ie. rewrite the Scotland Act to give themselves the power to arbitrarily force an early Holyrood election on their own whim.  In theory there's nothing to stop them doing that - but if key parts of the Scotland Act can be torn up so easily and casually, good luck trying to persuade voters that The Vow, and specifically the part about the Scottish Parliament's permanence, has been upheld or even meant anything in the first place.

Source: Yes, I'm giving constitutional advice to George Foulkes, and I'm doing it *deliberately*