Scotland and its fractious politics returned to centre stage at Westminster last week, a combination of unfinished referendum business and pre-general election skirmishing.
A weekend Ipsos Mori/STV poll had found that, on current voting intentions, the Scottish National Party (SNP), 27 points ahead of Labour, could win over 50 per cent of the vote and take 55 out of 59 seats north of the border. Although such a landslide is unlikely, it brought fresh speculation on the possibility of the party, having wiped Labour out in Scotland, then providing it with a governing majority in a hung Westminster parliament. Even, irony of ironies, the idea of of former leader Alex Salmond as deputy prime minister.
To emphasise the party's potential importance as a partner, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon announced, to Tory outrage, that the SNP's Westminster troops would henceforward be prepared to exercise their right to vote on purely English laws, from which they have refrained in recent times. The message was clear – the SNP would help Labour govern. Prime Minister David Cameron has responded by promising to pass new Westminster rules preventing MPs from voting on issues which have been devolved to their respective parliaments (watch out, Northern Ireland MPs). He may, however, have to reckon with opposition from unimpressed coalition partners, the Lib Dems.
The superficially democratic argument that Scottish MPs will have more rights than English MPs can best be answered by devolving power to English regions rather than curbing the parliamentary rights of the Scots.
Although not publicly admitting it, some SNP politicians are now quietly praying for a Tory victory in the hope that the combination of a toxic regime in London and a likely vote on British withdrawal from the EU may enrage Scots sufficiently to once again put an independence referendum on the Scottish political agenda. It’s a strategy the far left and far right would call “revolutionary defeatism” – make everyone sufficiently miserable and they will rally to our cause – but a recipe of despair born out of a reality of powerlessness and one that can hardly be spoken out loud.
Ms Sturgeon returned to the fray on Thursday to denounce as a retreat and betrayal the parliamentary bill implementing the findings of the Smith commission on the devolution of further powers to Scotland. Last-minute promises made ahead of the referendum last year by the three pro-union parties to secure a No vote were not honoured in the package of measures unveiled. In truth, however, nothing short of independence would have satisfied the SNP and its leader’s complaint that the Scottish Parliament’s right to vary welfare provisions would be subject to a London veto was largely unconvincing. A bit of a sideshow to May’s looming election.