Tag Archives: holyrood

Scotland, United Kingdom

In Scotland, the unionists (and Ruth Davidson) strike back

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No Conservative had a better night than Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who won more seats than at any election since 1983. (Facebook)

It was the worst night for Scottish nationalism in over a decade — worse, perhaps, than the narrow vote against independence in 2014.

Though the Conservative Party lost its majority at the national level, thanks to a loss of 21 seats in England, it will stagger on as the largest party in the House of Commons thanks in no small part to a surge in support in Scotland, where the party picked up 13 seats, all at the expense of the pro-independence Scottish National Party.

Though the SNP still won a greater share of the vote and more seats than any other party in Scotland, it was a very bad night for the party, which lost more seats, in total, than the Conservatives nation-wide. It was the worst electoral performance for the SNP since 2010 — former SNP leader Alex Salmond lost his seat in Gordon, and deputy SNP leader Angus Robertson lost his seat in Moray. Other MPs, like Mhairi Black, the 22-year-old who is the youngest member of the House of Commons, were easily reelected.

It was a sign, perhaps, that Scottish voters are growing weary of the SNP’s focus on independence after first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s pledge to demand a second referendum on Scotland’s status after Brexit negotiations conclude in 2019. As all three national parties made gains in yesterday’s general election (including what amounts to one-third of the Liberal Democratic caucus in the House of Commons), it leaves Sturgeon and the SNP in a precarious position.

After becoming the indisputable leftist opposition to conservatism in Scotland, the SNP now faces the dual threat of a plausible Tory unionism to its right and a resurgent Labour under an equally left-wing Jeremy Corbyn.

The SNP’s Mhairi Black, at 22 years old, is the youngest and one of the most outspoken voices in British politics today. (Facebook)

Though Sturgeon won a fresh mandate in the Scottish parliamentary election last May (and will not face voters again until 2021), the SNP’s plurality in the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh falls two seats short of an absolute majority. While the SNP and its allies currently command a majority in favor of calling a second referendum, the 2017 general election result may force Sturgeon to rethink that approach in favor of more quotidian concerns. Moreover, she will have to reorient the SNP approach after it has held power in Scotland since 2007, first under Salmond and, since 2014, Sturgeon. Not an easy task for a party that thought it could keep amassing outsized margins solely by demanding a second referendum.

Sturgeon herself admitted that the ‘referendum-or-bust’ approach may have backfired. Since prime minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 in March, Sturgeon and the Scottish government have demanded a second referendum on independence for Scotland. The region’s voters narrowly chose in September 2014 to stay in the United Kingdom by a margin of 55.3% to 44.7%. The same voters, however, opposed Brexit in the June 2016 EU referendum by a margin of 62% to 38%, joining ‘Remain’ majorities in Northern Ireland and London.

Sturgeon has threatened that if the Brexit negotiations do not leave Scotland with access to the European single market (and a ‘hard’ Brexit would not guarantee that access), Scottish voters deserve the chance to seek independence again as one way to return to the European Union.
Continue reading In Scotland, the unionists (and Ruth Davidson) strike back →

United Kingdom

The rational case for supporting Corbyn’s Labour leadership

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The entire political and media elite in Great Britain are today descending on Jeremy Corbyn (pictured above), the surprise frontrunner in the race to become the Labour Party’s next leader. United Kingdom Flag Icon

Today, for example, The Guardian‘s veteran political sage Michael White disqualifies Corbyn as, in essence, a socks-and-sandals hippie who would fail spectacularly:

I know there are good ideas in there, too, and that his lack of spin, his candour (sort of) and informality (etc) make a refreshing change from the timid incrementalism of the post-Blair Labour world. But running a party, let alone a government dealing with other governments, is a disciplined business. It’s got to hang together, which is not easy, as the Cameron government often shows…. Labour activists, the ones who do the hard work, are usually more leftwing than Labour voters, let alone floating voters. After 13 years of uneasy compromises in office, they want a leader who believes what they believe. If the price of the comfort blanket is permanent opposition, well, some would accept that too. Shame on them.

There’s a lot of reason to believe that Labour’s top guns will pull out all the stops between now and September to prevent Corbyn’s once-improbable victory, from former prime minister Tony Blair and down through the ranks. Think about how Scottish independence so focused the energies of virtually the entire business and political class of Great Britain last September. If Corbyn still leads the pack by late August, you can imagine much fiercer attacks than anything Corbyn’s seen so far.

Nevertheless, Corbyn is still on the rise. After winning the endorsement of Labour’s largest union, Unite, he nabbed the support of Unison earlier this week, and he won the support of the Communication Workers Union today. For good measure, the CWU, in its endorsement, added that Corbyn was the effective antidote to the ‘Blairite virus.’ Ouch.

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RELATED: Handicapping the race to succeed Cameron as Tory leader

RELATED: Corbyn’s suprise rise in
Labour leadership race highlights chasm

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So what gives? If Ed Miliband, according to so many political professionals, lost the May 2015 general election because he veered too far left, how in the world (so the logic goes) will Corbyn manage by taking Labour far into the retreat of its 1980s thumb-sucking comfort zone? Continue reading The rational case for supporting Corbyn’s Labour leadership →

Scotland, United Kingdom

Scottish referendum results: winners and losers

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bettertogether

The results are in, and Scotland did not vote yesterday to become a sovereign, independent country.scotlandUnited Kingdom Flag Icon

Scottish residents — and all British citizens — will wake up today to find that, however narrowly, the United Kingdom will remain as united today as it was yesterday, from a formal standpoint.

With all 32 local councils reporting, the ‘Yes’ camp has won 1.618 million votes (44.7% of the vote) against 2.002 million votes (55.3% of the vote) in favor of remaining within the British union, capping a 19-month campaign that resulted in a staggering 84.6% turnout in Thursday’s vote.

Moreover, ‘Yes’ won four councils, including Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city:

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But the close call has shaken the fundamental constitutional structure of the United Kingdom, and Scotland’s vote will now dominate the political agenda in the final eight months before the entire country votes in a general election next May, for better or worse.

So who comes out of the referendum’s marathon campaign looking better? Who comes out of the campaign bruised? Here’s Suffragio‘s tally of the winners and losers, following what must be one of the most historic elections of the 2010s in one of the world’s oldest democracies.

The Winners

1. Scottish nationalism 

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The nationalists lost Thursday’s referendum. So why are they still ‘winners’ in a political sense? Continue reading Scottish referendum results: winners and losers →

Scotland, United Kingdom

If Scotland votes ‘No,’ what will devolution-max entail?

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(35) Scottish Parliament

One of the biggest carrots that the ‘Better Together’ campaign is dangling to undecided voters in the week before tomorrow’s Scottish independence referendum is the concept of ‘devo-max’ — the idea that London will deliver ever greater devolution of policymaking powers to the Scottish parliament in Holyrood.United Kingdom Flag Iconscotland

Conservative prime minister David Cameron, Liberal Democratic deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband on Tuesday together signed a high-profile pledge to give Scotland greater powers, even without reducing the amount of financial support Scotland currently receives from Westminster.

That is, of course, if Scots vote ‘No’ to independence.

It’s a vow that nationalist leaders, including Scottish first minister Alex Salmond, were quick to dismiss as last-minute gasps of desperation not to be trusted. Salmond, among others, noted that it was Cameron’s insistence on a straight in-or-out vote that eliminated a possible third option for a more federal United Kingdom or some form of devo-max when the two leaders agreed the referendum in March 2013.

Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown has argued for months that a ‘No’ vote would necessarily require a debate over additional devolution. It might have been strategically wiser if British party leaders, as well as the leaders of the ‘Better Together’ campaign like former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling, had acknowledged the devo-max option earlier. That may be one reason why Brown, who engineered Scottish devolution upon Labour’s 1997 electoral victory, has emerged as such a strong champion for the ‘No’ campaign, despite his national defeat in the 2010 general election. His speech today, less than 24 hours before polls open, was one of the best of the campaign (on either side) and maybe the best of his career.

If a ‘Yes’ vote could endanger Cameron’s premiership, a ‘No’ vote tomorrow could alter Brown’s legacy for the positive.

But as politicians from the left and the right have descended upon Scotland in the last week, with polls showing a much tighter contest than the anti-independence campaign ever anticipated, it’s worth considering three questions about the latest promise of further devolution:

  • Has Scotland effectively used its local governance powers in the past 15 years?
  • What additional powers might Scotland be granted as part of ‘devo-max’?
  • With a general election approaching in May 2015, and with the governing Conservative base firmly rooted in England, is the promise of devo-max something Cameron can legitimately deliver, in light of grumbling from English Tories increasingly frustrated about concessions to Scotland?

Continue reading If Scotland votes ‘No,’ what will devolution-max entail? →

Scotland, United Kingdom

Who is Nicola Sturgeon? Meet the star of the SNP’s rising generation.

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sturgeon

If there’s one person who will benefit no matter how Scotland votes in its too-close-to-call independence referendum on September 18, it is deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has taken a high-profile role leading the ‘Yes’ campaign that supports Scottish independence.scotlandUnited Kingdom Flag Icon

When Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) became first minister in May 2007, just eight years after Scotland’s initial elections for its local parliament in Holyrood, Sturgeon became his deputy, and she has served as the deputy leader of the SNP since 2004.

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RELATED: How an independent Scotland could enter the EU

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If Salmond suffers a defeat in next week’s referendum, the 44-year-old Sturgeon, a popular figure in Scotland, might soon replace the 59-year old Salmond in government. Some SNP deputies are already arguing that, if the ‘Yes’ camp doesn’t win next Thursday, Salmond should resign and allow Sturgeon to become first minister, in much the same way that Tories in Westminster are arguing that British prime minister David Cameron would have to step down if the ‘Yes’ campaign wins.

With polls now showing that the ‘Yes’ campaign has essentially caught up with the ‘No’ campaign, a close defeat may yet be a victory for Salmond. As in Québec in 1980, a narrow loss wouldn’t foreclose another possible vote in a decade’s time. But it might be difficult, after losing Scotland’s best chance at independence, for Salmond to lead the SNP into a campaign for a third consecutive term in the next elections, which must be held before 2016. Moreover, another term as first minister is a letdown from the much headier notion of becoming sovereign Scotland’s first prime minister.

On the other hand, if the ‘Yes’ camp pulls off the victory that just a week ago seemed out of its grasp, Sturgeon would almost certainly rise to deputy prime minister in an independent Scotland, just as much the heir apparent to Salmond then as now. As women flock toward independence, according to many polls, Sturgeon may be the ‘Yes’ campaign’s secret weapon.

The bottom line is that Sturgeon is the favorite to become, within the decade, either Scotland’s next first minister (within the existing UK system) or its second prime minister as an independent country.

In light of all of the questions — including Scotland’s currency and EU membership — that would be settled in its first chaotic years as an independent nation-state, Scotland’s future leadership is one of the key variables in whether it would become viable as a new state.

So what exactly would Sturgeon bring in the way of political skill and states(wo)manship?

Continue reading Who is Nicola Sturgeon? Meet the star of the SNP’s rising generation. →

Scotland, United Kingdom

Scotland passes same-sex marriage, joining England and Wales

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scotiapride

Though the UK parliament in Westminster enacted same-sex marriage in July 2013 to great fanfare, the nature of devolution in the United Kingdom meant that Scotland’s parliament in Holyrood would have to pass its own version.United Kingdom Flag Iconscotland

The devolution process that began in 1997 under Labour prime minister Tony Blair created parliaments for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.  But regional devolution ran deepest in Scotland — Wales opted for fewer regional powers than Scotland, and Northern Ireland’s parliament, created as part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, spent much of the 2000s suspended.  Ironically, that meant that for a brief period, same-sex marriage would be the law of the land in England in Wales, but not in the more socially liberal Scotland.

That changed today, when the Scottish parliament voted 105 to 18 in favor of enacting same-sex marriage.  First minister Alex Salmond, who leads a pro-independence government of the Scottish National Party (SNP) fast-tracked the bill to keep pace with Westminster.  Though the bill wasn’t without controversy, especially from within the Church of Scotland and other religious groups, support within the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish Liberal Democrats meant that the bill was always likely to sail through Holyrood.

ruth

Though the major opposition to same-sex marriage in England and Wales came from within the Conservative Party of prime minister David Cameron (who himself supported marriage equality), the leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, Ruth Davidson (pictured above), is herself gay and strongly supported the marriage equality effort in Scotland. Though the Tories hold just 15 seats in the 129-member Scottish parliament (compared to 65 seats for the SNP and 37 for Labour), Davidson and Cameron have shown that conservatism and marriage equality aren’t necessarily incompatible.

The lengthier Scottish consultation process on the same-sex marriage bill included outreach to hear the views of religious groups, and churches will have the right (though not the obligation) to ‘opt in’ to same-sex marriage in Scotland when the law takes effect later this year.  That makes the Scottish same-sex marriage act somewhat stronger than the English version, which provides a blanket ban on same-sex ceremonies within the Church of England.

The first same-sex marriages in England and Wales will take place in March, and the first marriages in Scotland will take place later in autumn 2014.

It also leaves Northern Ireland as the only part of the United Kingdom without same-sex marriage — and as I wrote last summer, don’t expect the Northern Irish assembly at Stormont to take up the cause of LGBT equality anytime soon:  Continue reading Scotland passes same-sex marriage, joining England and Wales →

14 in 14, Scotland, United Kingdom

14 in 2014: Scotland independence referendum

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12. Scotland referendum on independence from UK, September 18.United Kingdom Flag Iconscotland

Separatists from Québec to Barcelona will be watching Scotland’s historic vote on independence in the autumn, which could end over three centuries of union between Scotland and England, bringing the United Kingdom as we know it to an end.

Scottish nationalists, buoyed by the economic hopes of North Sea oil, have increasingly floated the idea of independence since the 1970s.  Scotland’s rift with Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s only alienated the country further from Westminster, and the election of Labour prime minister Tony Blair in 1997 led to the devolution of many Scottish domestic matters to a new regional parliament at Holyrood.  Since 2007, the Scottish government has been led by the Scottish National Party (SNP) and first minister Alex Salmond.  In the most recent May 2011 Scottish elections, the SNP was so popular that it won a majority government — a feat that the Scottish electoral system was specifically designed to avoid.

Salmond and his popular deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon will lead the ‘Yes’ campaign for Scottish independence following the agreement that Salmond and British prime minister David Cameron struck in March 2013 on the referendum’s date and its terms.  Proponents are likely to paint a vision of Scotland as an independent nation that has more in common with the Nordic welfare states than with Anglo-American capitalism.  Though Scotland’s 5.3 million residents comprise just around 8.4% of the total UK population, Scotland has retained a proud and distinct culture and a discrete linguistic and intellectual tradition, and it veers politically to the left of England.

Cameron, the leader of the center-right Conservative Party, will help lead the ‘No’ campaign, which has already been christened the ‘Better Together’ campaign.  But the relative unpopularity of Cameron and the Tories in Scotland means that he’ll need help from the centrist Liberal Democratic Party and the center-left Labour Party.  In particular, Alistair Darling, the former Labour chancellor of the exchequer under prime minister Gordon Brown (both of whom are Scottish) is chairing the ‘Better Together’ effort.  Although the ‘No’ campaign will try to convince Scots that they are, in fact, better off staying in the United Kingdom, it will also point to obstacles that an independent Scotland could face.  Chief among those obstacles might be Scotland’s position in the European Union — although Scots are generally more pro-EU than their English counterparts, it’s not clear whether an independent Scotland would automatically join the European Union or would be forced to apply for readmission.  Scotland would also face protracted negotiations with England (or perhaps the ‘United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’) over splitting the current UK debt burden, as well as defense, currency, immigration, citizenship and other myriad arrangements.

Polls show that Scottish voters today oppose independence — around 40% to 55% of voters would vote ‘No,’ and just around 25% to 35% would vote ‘Yes.’  But the campaigns won’t hit top speed until later in 2014 after the UK vote to elect members to the European Parliament.

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Northern Ireland, Scotland, United Kingdom

Hey! What about gay marriage in Scotland and Northern Ireland?

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belfastpride

Amid the fanfare that much of the United Kingdom would now enjoy full same-sex marriage rights following the success of Conservative UK prime minister David Cameron in enacting a successful vote earlier this week in Parliament, some LGBT activists are still waiting at the altar of public policy for their respective day of celebration.United Kingdom Flag Iconscotlandnorthernireland

Under the odd devolved system within the United Kingdom of Northern Ireland and Great Britain, it’s up to the separate Northern Ireland Assembly to effect its own laws on marriage.  Even within Great Britain, the Scottish parliament, likewise, has the sole power to enact legislation related to marriage rights.

So while nearly 90% of the residents of the country will now be able to enter into same-sex marriages, Scottish and the Northern Irish will have to wait a little longer — and in the case of Northern Ireland, it seems like the wait will be lengthy. Scotland, with 5.3 million people (8.4% of the total UK population), and which will vote on independence in a referendum in September 2014, is already taking steps toward passing legislation, though Northern Ireland, with 1.8 million people (2.9% of the UK population), has already considered and rejected same-sex marriage.

The reason for the disparity within the United Kingdom goes back to former Labour prime minister Tony Blair.

Under the broad devolution process that his ‘New Labour’ government initiated upon taking power in 1997, much of the power to regulate life in Scotland was devolved from Westminster to the new parliament that met for the first time in 1999 at Holyrood.  Although a parallel Welsh Assembly exists in Cardiff for Welsh affairs, the Welsh parliament lacks the same breadth of powers that the Scottish parliament enjoys, which is why the Welsh now have same-sex marriage rights. (Take heart, Daffyd!)

Northern Ireland has a similar arrangement, with its own devolved Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, though its powers were suspended from 2002 to 2007 when the Northern Ireland peace process fell apart, however briefly.

The disparate courses of English, Scottish and Northern Irish marriage rights are a case study in how devolution works in the United Kingdom today.

Scotland: Holyrood poised to pass an even stronger marriage equality bill in 2014

Scotland’s local government, led by Alex Salmond and the Scottish National Party, introduced a same-sex marriage bill late in June that is set to provide an even more liberal regime of marriage rights.  While the marriage bill passed earlier this week in London actually bans the Anglican Church of England from offering same-sex marriage ceremonies, the Scottish bill won’t have the same prohibitions on the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which is seen as somewhat more relaxed about gay marriage.  Like the English legislation, however, the Scottish bill offer protections to ministers on religious grounds who do not choose to officiate same-sex marriages.

Although there’s opposition to the bill within the governing SNP as well as the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish Liberal Democratic Party, the Conservative Party has very little influence outside England and Scotland, generally speaking, is even more socially progressive than England, which means that the legislation is widely expect to pass in the Scottish Parliament early next year, with the first same-sex marriages in Scotland to take place in 2015.

Northern Ireland: gay marriage as a football between Protestant and Catholic communities

Earlier this year, the Northern Ireland Assembly considered a same-sex marriage bill, but it was defeated in April by a vote of 53 to 42 — a similar motion was defeated in October 2012 by a similar margin. Since 2005, LGBT individuals have been able to enter into civil partnerships (with most, though not all, of the rights of marriage enjoyed by opposite-sex partners) throughout the entire United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland.

When Scotland passes its gay marriage bill next year, however, it will leave Northern Ireland as the only part of the United Kingdom without marriage equality.

Not surprisingly, given that Northern Ireland was partitioned out of the Republic of Ireland in 1921 largely on religious lines, and Protestant-Catholic violence has plagued Northern Ireland for much of the decades since, Northern Ireland is the most religious part of the United Kingdom.  A 2007 poll showed that while only 14% of the English and 18% of Scots were weekly churchgoers, fully 45% of the Northern Irish attended church weekly.

Unlike Scotland, where the mainstream UK political parties, such as the Tories, Labour and Liberal Democrats, aim to compete with the Scottish Nationalists (with varying degrees of success), Northern Irish politics are entirely different, based instead on the largely Protestant ‘unionist’ community and the largely Catholic ‘nationalist’ community.  Around 41% of Northern Ireland is Roman Catholic, while around 41.5% of Northern Ireland is Protestant (mostly the Presbyterian Church and the Anglican Church of Ireland).

That helps explain why the opposition to gay marriage in Northern Ireland remains so strong, and it doesn’t help that the issue falls along the same lines as the entrenched unionist and nationalist divisions.  Given that it’s unlikely either community will come to dominate Northern Irish politics and the Assembly anytime soon, it means that proponents of same-sex marriage will have to convince at least some unionists to join forces with largely supportive nationalist parties to pass a marriage bill — and that may prove a difficult task for a five-way power-sharing government in Belfast that has enough difficulties even without gay marriage.  Continue reading Hey! What about gay marriage in Scotland and Northern Ireland? →

Scotland, United Kingdom

Scots to vote on independence in 2014 as Salmond and Cameron seal referendum pact

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They’ve certainly screwed their courage to the sticking place now.

UK prime minister David Cameron has agreed with Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond on the terms of a referendum, to be held in Scotland in autumn 2014, as to whether Scotland should seek independence or remain part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

With a newly elected sovereigntist government in the French-speaking province of Québec in Canada, and with the separatist-minded Basque Country set for regional elections this Sunday and the even more separatist-minded Catalunya going to regional polls next month, regional autonomy seems to be mounting somewhat of a comeback on both sides of the Atlantic.

Under today’s ‘Edinburgh agreement’ between Salmond and Cameron, Scottish voters will have the opportunity to vote for independence, ending 305 years as a single nation united with England after the 1707 Act of Union.

The agreement marks a tactical victory for both Salmond and Cameron.  Salmond, who had hoped to put off the referendum indefinitely and perhaps beyond the next scheduled general election in 2015, will nonetheless get a delay for nearly two years to make his case for independence, and 16- and 17-year olds will be permitted to vote as well (so 14-year-old Scots, start following Suffragio now).

For his part, Cameron will have succeeded in getting a straight up-and-down vote on the independence question, not a multiple-question referendum on greater autonomy for Scotland, which polls show would be much more likely to succeed than full independence.

Salmond, who is Scotland’s ‘first minister’ — the leader of the regional Scottish government — and whose Scottish National Party in 2011 secured the largest mandate of any regional Scottish election since the 1998 devolution established the Scottish parliament, will lead the campaign for the ‘yes’ vote.

Cameron, the Tory prime minister who won just one seat and a grand total of 16.7% in the 2010 general election in Scotland (finishing last among the four major parties), will lead the campaign for the ‘no’ vote, but he will certainly be joined by Labour leader Ed Miliband and Liberal Democratic leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, whose party serves in the United Kingdom’s governing coalition with the Tories. Since the days of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who tried to use Scotland in 1989 as a testing ground for the much-derided ‘poll tax’ that was set to apply nationwide in 1990, Scotland has greeted the Tories with antipathy.  So it’s not without some legitimacy that Miliband has argued that only Labour can keep Scotland in the United Kingdom.

As Alex Massie writes for The Spectator, in calling the entire ‘phony war’ leading up to today’s event  a queer process (and quite rightly), he notes that Cameron himself, quite a fish out of water in Scotland, may lose the general election currently scheduled for May 2015:

David Cameron slinks in to Scotland almost as though he were the leader of a foreign country already. You would not think he’s merely visiting territory for which he presently holds some responsibility. The optics – as the media handlers say – will favour Mr Salmond today. Why, there will even be signing and swapping of papers further bolstering the impression this is a meeting of equals….

The difficulty is that it is not yet clear what a No vote actually means. It will not necessarily settle the matter, not least since the Prime Minister is on record as being open to “more powers” for Holyrood after the referendum.

That, however, is a discussion upon which he may have little influence. The next Westminster election must be held just six months or so after Scotland’s referendum. David Cameron may – just may – not win that election. Which means that at some point we will need to know what Ed Miliband thinks about Scotland too. What a happy thought that is!

On the surface, then, Salmond seems well placed in the next 24 months to turn around polling data that shows, on a straight ‘union vs. independence’ referendum, Scots support union (as of an Oct. 8 TNS-MRNB poll) by a 53% margin, to just 28% in favor of breaking from the United Kingdom.

Scotland, under Labour prime minister Tony Blair’s devolution policy for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, achieved its own parliament after a successful 1997 referendum, and the Scottish parliament came into being in 1998.  The parliament, informally known as Holyrood, the name of the Edinburgh neighborhood in which it is located, is a 129-member unicameral legislature, essentially shares legislation power with the UK parliament in Westminster.

Cameron’s victory in the ‘Edinburgh agreement’ was to limit the options to strictly independence or remaining in the union, rather than allowing for a ‘devomax’ option — maximum devolution that would provide the Scottish parliament even more powers currently reserved for Westminster.  Indeed, Cameron seemed to dangle the possibility of further devolution earlier Tuesday in his remarks on the agreement:

Mr Cameron said: “All those who want to see not only the status quo but further devolution from the United Kingdom to Scotland must vote to stay within the United Kingdom.  Then it’ll be for all the parties to decide what proposals to put forward, but I’ve always taken the view we have to answer this prior question first. We have to answer the question: does Scotland want to stay in the United Kingdom? If the answer is Yes we do want to stay in the United Kingdom, then obviously further devolution is possible.”

In some senses, though, the limitation to a simple yes-or-no vote raises the stakes — Scots will be bloody well certain to demand guarantees from the parties supporting the ‘No’ vote that additional devolution will result from a successful ‘No’ vote in 2014.   Continue reading Scots to vote on independence in 2014 as Salmond and Cameron seal referendum pact →