Devolution

[Jordyboy9]

Has Boris the power to abolish Scottish devolution? And if yes should he do it,?

[TheDevil]

No and No.

We are the UK. It would be racist to discredit and completly remove a political party because it was mainly Scottish and not English.

Same way Boris can't just stop Plaid Cymru from being a political party.

[bednobs]

TD, you do know that devolution is not a political party, right?

[TheDevil]

The connotation is the same.

[TheDevil]

Uk politics is UK politics. Not English politics.

[TheDevil]

Boris has no power over Scottish Parliament Jordy. He could not abolish it. And if he could, then doing so would be very risky. As an Englishman I want Scotland to stay a part of the United Kingdom.

[sevenOP]

Rather antidemocratic if he did.
Some Scots have strong, if mistaken, beliefs.
(And some Magna Carta worshippers too.)

https://www.dailyreckless.com/2019/10/16/the-declaration-of-arbroath/

[Zacs-Master]

The UK Parliament at Westminster retains power to legislate on any issue in the Scottish Parliament, but the convention of devolution is that the UK Parliament will not normally legislate on devolved matters without the consent of the SP.

Note the word 'normally'.

Boris has already refused to grant Scotland powers to hold independence vote.

[Old_Geezer]

Doesn't need to. A referendum was held, Boris need not give permission to hold one every five minutes or whenever the SNP don't like something. No referendum, no mandate to pull out. Without the consent of the people no devolution.

[TheDevil]

"Boris has already refused to grant Scotland powers to hold independence vote."

That's not democratic at all though.

Imagine if the EU refused us to have a vote on if we could leave?

Conservative party really seems to be tunnel visioned.

[Zacs-Master]

It's happened, whether it's democratic or not. I was trying to point out to Jordy that, if push came to shove, there are mechanisms which could be used to thwart devolution, if it were deemed necessary.

[TheDevil]

Ignore me then Jordy. I seem to be completely wrong.

[Old_Geezer]

It's perfectly democratic. Democracy doesn't demand a poll every time there's a 'y' in the day. Democracy needs to avoid flip flop and a once in a lifetime vote on something is just that, and has already been taken. Beyond that, all areas elect representation to Westminster.

[Old_Geezer]

We all know that the EU isn't democratic, that we don't elect folk to their Commission, so the two aren't comparable.

[TheDevil]

Old Geezer, Are you saying the president of the EU just stood up and said "right i'm in charge" or did MEP's get a vote?

[Zacs-Master]

Boris has already set up a Union Unit, with the remit of developing policies and arguments that will persuade Scots to vote No in any future referendum.
This is with a view to preventing the SNP from winning a pro-indy majority. If pro-union parties win 65 or more of the Scottish parliament’s 129 seats, a referendum becomes much less likely.

[steg]

I would imagine if the uk government really wanted to take away Scots devolution they could, but they won’t, not in the near future anyway

[Zacs-Master]

Comparisons with the EU are an unhelpful distraction in answering Jordy's question.

[sevenOP]

"Referendums are not legally binding, so legally the Government can ignore the results; for example, even if the result of a pre-legislative referendum were a majority of "No" for a proposed law, Parliament could pass it anyway, because parliament is sovereign."

Seems a lot of people are under a misapprehension.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_the_United_Kingdom

[sevenOP]

"a once in a lifetime vote on something is just that, and has already been taken."

Who DECIDED it was once..... ?

[Zacs-Master]

That link proves that referendum results aren't binding:

' they [referendums]are by tradition extremely rare due to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty meaning that they cannot be constitutionally binding'