Scottish Claim of Right

The SNP's Nicola Sturgeon has called upon the Scottish Parliament to recommit to the principles of the Scottish Claim of Right:

Presiding officer, the motion for this afternoon’s debate is deliberately simple. It states that “This Parliament acknowledges the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and declares and pledges that in all its actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.”

This paraphrases the Scottish Constitutional Convention Claim of Right, 1989, to which all Scottish Labour and Scottish Lib Dem MPs - with the exception of Tam Dalyell - put their names:

We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.

It's very difficult to see how today's Labour and Liberal Democrat MSPs could refuse to endorse Sturgeon's 2012 Claim of Right, and having done so, it's very difficult to see how they could then fail to cooperate over the inclusion of a Devo-Max option on the referendum ballot paper (seeing as the majority of Scots seem to believe Devo-Max to be "the form of Government best suited to their needs".

There's an excellent letter to the Glasgow Herald, in response to Iain MacWhirter, in which Hugh Andrew describes the wearying 'British constitutional fudge' of the Scottish Parliament's legitimacy. You should read both.

The British political class are in a real mess over the question of Scottish sovereignty. In his speech to the English Constitutional Convention, Canon Kenyon Wright told us that the Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs that signed the Scottish Claim of Right "didn’t know what they were signing!" because "they were signing something which was a direct contradiction of the claim of Westminster to absolute sovereignty". Those MPs included Jim Wallace, now a member of the Calman Commission, and Gordon Brown, our glorious leader down in England.

Tom Nairn, not surprisingly, takes a similar view.

In 1988—the 300th anniversary of William’s accession— it [Scottish Constitutional Convention] also published a Scottish Claim of Right signed by most Labour and Liberal-Democrat MPs, which attributed all sovereign rights in Scotland to the Scottish people, rather than to the Crown in Westminster. Did they mean it? Well, presumably the signatories did mean it, at least while their pens were scratching the Declaration paper. Some of them may now be telling themselves it is irrelevant, or has been superseded by the newly Glorious & Bloodless Accession of 1997. If so, they are mistaken. - Tom Nairn, Sovereignty After the Election, New Left Review I/224, July-August 1997

And the SNP too, know that they can call upon the idea of popular sovereignty to win the referendum argument, as this old press release demonstrates.

Friday 4 April 1997 - For Immediate Release
"SOVEREIGNTY REVERSAL AT HEART OF LABOUR RETREAT"
SNP PUBLISH KEY CONVENTION QUOTES

Following the extraordinary remarks by Tony Blair in The Scotsman this morning - in which he proclaims the sovereignty of English MPs over Scotland - the Scottish National Party published a series of quotes which illustrate New Labour's retreat over the "Claim of Right" (the foundation document of the Constitutional Convention, which every Scottish Labour MP signed in 1989, proclaiming the sovereignty of the Scottish people), and Tony Blair's likening of the revenue raising powers of the proposed assembly to those of local authorities:

"We gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people" ("Claim of Right", 30 March 1989 - signed by every Scottish Labour MP, except Tam Dalyell).

The purpose of the 'Claim of Right', "was to root the Convention solidly in the historical and historic Scottish constitutional principle that power is . . . derived from the people" ("Scotland's Parliament, Scotland's Right", Constitutional Convention, 30 November 1995).

"Sovereignty rests with me as an English MP, and that's the way it will stay" (Tony Blair, Scotsman, 4 April 1997).

Referring to an assembly's tax powers, Blair said: "The powers are like those of any local authority . . . it's like any parish council" (Scotsman, 4 April 1997).

Speaking in Stornoway, SNP leader Mr Alex Salmond MP said:

"Tony Blair's reversal of Scottish sovereignty goes to the very heart of New Labour's retreat on the Scottish constitution. And likening the powers of an assembly to those of a local authority gives the game away about the weakness of devolution. The average local authority controls 15 per cent of its revenue - and is being squeezed dry of resources by the Tories at Westminster - and yet New Labour's proposed assembly could control only 3 per cent of its budget.

"Blair has blown the Scottish election wide open with these devastating remarks."

The latest YouGov poll (16.03.09) for the Sunday Times puts support for the principle of a referendum on Scottish independence at 57% (with 29% against), yet Tavish Scott has put the Liberal Democrats in a ludicrous position by calling on the SNP to cancel their planned referendum - even though the separatists would most probably lose. As MacWhirter points out the Lib Dems are in favour of referendums on Westminster reform, English regional government and over the question of the EU, so why not Scotland; why go against the principle of popular sovereignty that all your Scottish MPs put their names to in 1988?

A Scottish independence referendum would be great theatre, a real TV extraveganza. It would envigorate politics, which is so boring at present. And the debate on English self-governance, which Westminster is so keen to keep a lid on, would be uncontainable - and it's for this reason more than any other that I'm so keen to see a referendum for Scotland (the SNP might like to factor that into their equation).

SNP: Let the people decide!
BBC: Lib Dem MSP calls for referendum

My submission (more of a long complaint really) to the Calman Commission on Scottish Devolution.

As an Englishman who lived in Scotland during the formative years of the Scottish Parliament, but who now resides back in England, I appreciate the opportunity that you have given me to put forward my views on Scottish Devolution ten years on.

The Scottish Claim of Right acknowledged that the Scottish people have the 'sovereign right' to decide the form of government best suited to their needs. That 'form of government' must include independence as well as devolution, so I am disappointed to note that the independence option is off your stated agenda.

"To review the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998 in the light of experience and to recommend any changes to the present constitutional arrangements that would enable the Scottish Parliament to serve the people of Scotland better, improve the financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament, and continue to secure the position of Scotland within the United Kingdom."

As an Englishman I must say that I find it hypocritical of Gordon Brown, and others who signed the Scottish Claim of Right, to now deny that same sovereign right to the people of England, especially as recognition of the Scottish sovereign right, in the form of the devolution that has followed, has moved power away from Westminster in a way that has damaged English voters. My concern, and that of many other Englishmen and women, is that enhanced powers for the Scottish Parliament will simply increase the democratic deficit in England that has resulted from the asymmetric devolution 'settlement'.

"Settlement" implies an agreement between two parties, but unlike the Scottish people the English were never consulted. It's this oversight that must be rectified in any new round of devolution in order to achieve a stable union. Without consent on all sides it will resemble more a forced marriage than a union.

Jim Wallace, one of the Calman Commission's Group Chairs, was a signatory to the Scottish Claim of Right that attested to the sovereign right of the Scottish people. As an architect of Scottish devolution his constituents rewarded him by electing him as their MSP, a role that he took on whilst remaining an MP at Westminster, at which place he showed scant regard for the sovereign right of the English people by continuing to vote on English legislation. To this day Scottish Labour and Scottish Lib Dem MPs continue this proud tradition of interference in English affairs, in contrast to the self-denying ordinance observed by SNP and Conservative MPs.

The Barnett Formula, which determines the money due to Scotland as a proportion of what is spent in England, provides the rationale for this undemocratic intrusion into English affairs. Due to the fact that English legislation has a knock-on effect on the Scottish budget, the logic goes that Scottish MPs have a constitutional - but hardly ethical - justification for voting on matters that are of no direct consequence to their constituents (who, incidently, don't elect them to represent them on the concomitant Scottish legislation because that is the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament).

This justification for voting on English affairs can be removed if the Calman Commission could find a way to improve the financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament . I would suggest that the simplest way to do this is for Scotland to raise its own taxes to pay for all areas of governance that are devolved. In this way Scotland can maintain its generous social provision without the English grievance that such profligacy generates. The advantage for England lies in the fact that an increase in financial accountability of MSPs is matched by an inversely proportional decrease in the financial accountability of those Scottish MPs down in England, who - at present - have a say in how English money is spent. This state of affairs will be unsustainable under fiscal federalism, when the rationale behind the undemocratic Scottish intrusion into English affairs is gone. "No taxation without representation" could well become the English battle cry when confronted with sticky beak Scottish politicians, and it will be a just cry because MPs elected in England quite rightly have no say on how the Scottish Parliament spends its budget.

Down here in England the Scots are becoming viewed as a pampered clique by virtue of their privileged constitutional status and an overly generous Barnett provision. To secure the position of Scotland within the United Kingdom the Calman Commission needs to find a way of reducing English grievance without compromising Scotland's privileged postion and inadvertently fanning the Scottish nationalist fire. It is an unenviable task, especially as you now have a nationalist government persuing a strategy of policy divergence between London and Leith.

The English do not begrudge the Scots taking their own decisions; in fact, if opinion polls are to be believed, we don't much care if you vote for independence. We do not begrudge the Scots their nationhood or their Scottish identity. We do, however, find it objectionable that the "Future of the Union" is being decided by Scotland. And we find it even more objectionable to have an Britishness thrust upon us by a self-serving Scottish prime minister as a sop to English nationalism and as an entreaty against Scottish nationalism. If the Scottish people are sovereign to say "yes" or "no" to political union with England, and sovereign to determine the nature and extent of that union, then the same must be true for the people of England in regard to our relationship with Scotland and the British state. The Acts of Union were a bilateral process and it would be unfair for the Scottish people to renegotiate terms (again) without the English being consulted (again). Unilateralism and Britishness are not the answer, they merely inflame the situation.

To my mind the best way of preventing English grievance is to allow the English to be masters of their own destiny; for the English to have the same sovereign right to not only choose their government, but also to determine what form that government should take, and; to be free to make their own mistakes, and able to accept responsibility for them rather than lay blame at the door of the Union. My guess is that given this the English will choose political union with Scotland. Whether the Scots will reciprocate is another matter, but then what is the point of a union of nations that is not one based on mutual consent?

My advice to you, if you want to save the Union and secure Scotland's place in it, is to not change anything until the English have shown their hand. "Britishness" is not the currency it once was down here in England, so it would be foolish of you to count on English magnanimity and goodwill to forge ahead with Scottish devolution round two.

Jim Wallace will have plenty of time to consider these questions as he sits in the House of Lords scrutinising English legislation. Perhaps he can also find time to muse upon the questions of whether his seat might be put to better purpose by the bum of a democratically elected English MP representing the people of England, and whether the chamber itself would be better used as an English national parliament. Then again perhaps not, which is why Paxman cooked up the phrase "Scottish Raj".

Good luck,

UPDATE: My submission now online.