SCOTLAND’s new Tory MPs have urged the SNP to stop talking about the sovereignty of the Scottish people and to “represent their constituents” by accepting the UK voted for Brexit.
The startling intervention came during yesterday’s House of Commons debate on the Brexit repeal bill, when the SNP’s Europe spokesman, Peter Grant, suggested the legislation as it stands would undermine the Scottish Parliament.
He asked MPs to respect the decision made by the majority of Scots to stay in the European Union.
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Stirling’s Tory MP Stephen Kerr told Grant the question on the ballot paper for the EU referendum was a “United Kingdom question and a United Kingdom vote, and we voted as a United Kingdom to leave the European Union”.
“That is what we decided,” he thundered. “Does he not understand that?”
Grant replied: “I do not know which part of ‘the people of Scotland are sovereign’ the honourable gentleman does not understand.
“The people of Scotland are sovereign, and I will defend their sovereignty. I urge all Members of Parliament from Scotland to respect that sovereignty when the time comes.”
Ochil and South Perthshire Tory MP Luke Graham then told Grant that with one million Scots voting to leave, including a third of all SNP voters, “if he truly wants to represent his constituents, he should respect the democratic will of the United Kingdom, which is what he, like all of us, is in this Parliament to do.”
Grant replied: “I will happily see the honourable gentleman’s one million Scottish votes to leave the European Union and raise him 1.6 million Scottish votes to leave the United Kingdom, not to mention the two million or so who voted to remain in the United Kingdom, because he and his colleagues promised unconditionally that that was the way to protect our membership of the European Union.”
Yesterday’s session was the first time MPs have had to debate the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, formerly known as the Great Repeal Bill.
The legislation is probably the most complex and dense piece of policy our parliamentarians have been tasked with in decades.
The Commons will sit until midnight on Monday, to allow MPs a chance to speak.
Simply put, the bill repeals the European Communities Act 1972 that gives the institutions of the EU certain powers over the institutions of the UK, and transfers all European law into British law.
Effectively, it should mean all the laws that applied on the day before exit day still exist on the day after exit day. That is no simple task.
The government is also asking for Parliament’s permission to gain new, unprecedented powers to deal with nearly 12,000 regulations that will need to be brought on to the statute books.
A handful of campaigners wearing Tudor clothes protested outside the Commons, bristling at the government getting their hands on these so-called Henry VIII powers.
Confused tourists taking in Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, snapped pictures of one man dressed as Henry VIII holding a placard reading “don’t behead our democracy”.
Brexit Secretary David Davis told MPs the powers were “essential” if the government were to honour the decision made by voters in last year’s EU referendum.
He said the new powers would merely be technical in nature and would ensure that “on the day we leave, businesses know where they stand".
Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said Davis was wrong to “portray this bill as a technical exercise converting EU law into our law without raising any serious constitutional issues about the role of Parliament.”
“Nothing could be further than the truth,” he said.
He added later: “It’s an unprecedented power grab. Rule by decree is not a mis-description. It’s an affront to Parliament and accountability.”
MPs will vote on the bill next Monday after the debate. Despite the fact that the SNP, most Labour MPs, the Liberal Democrats and possibly a few Tories will vote against, May’s support from the DUP MPs means it will likely pass to the next parliamentary stage.
One of the most controversial parts the bill is Clause 11, which sees powers over devolved matters currently held by the EU coming back to London, rather than going to the devolved parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast.
Grant said it was an attempt to “emasculate all three devolved parliaments.”
He argued: “We are seeing a betrayal of the promises – one could almost say the “vow” – that certain people made to the people of Scotland just three years ago: the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world, they said; Scotland should lead the Union, they said; parity of esteem and an equal partnership of nations, they said.”
Davis had earlier said the taking of powers was to create a UK framework and that the Bill was “transitional”.
Brexit, he said, would mean “a significant increase in the decision-making power of the devolved institutions.”
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