Lib Dems and Sovereignty

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 Some of them may now be telling themselves it is irrelevant, or has been superseded by the newly Glorious & Bloodless Accession of 1997.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