GLORY be! Thank you, Gordon Millar (SNP shouldn’t play by Westminster rules – that won’t get us anywhere, June 26).
At last I have seen in print what I have been personally pontificating about for ages, that our government needs to be much more proactive, even defiant, in challenging Westminster diktats that are damaging Scotland.
I too was at the SNP Conference last autumn – my first ever – and even then, felt frustrated that the addenda he suggests were not included in the resolutions. That meant they were not really statements of intent, only pious hopes.
READ MORE: SNP shouldn’t play by Westminster rules – that won’t get us anywhere
Why did we bother voting if we were still going to accept that Westminster could simply say “no”? I have long been advocating the two examples which he offers and would go even further, suggesting that we pre-empt the accusations of using taxpayers’ money for party purposes, by crowdfunding the unit to defend those unfairly threatened with deportation.
I suspect it would be one of the fastest growing funds ever raised and that in itself would send a strong message on Scottish attitudes to “foreigners” (not “aliens”, as the Home Office would term them) and immigration in general.
As part of non-cooperation, if Police Scotland was to be instructed, for example, to protect those immigrants likely to be made homeless by the changing of locks, or those threatened by incarceration while appeals were still ongoing, what would Westminster do? Send in the troops? That would be a great wheeze in making us love the Union! Spain and Catalonia anyone?
In the case of the fracking licence given to Ineos by Westminster, this kind of imagination and determination was shown in finding a way within our powers to prevent it taking place. So are we just going to roll over and play dead when, not if, Westminster takes back control of environmental issues and gives the go-ahead for fracking in Central Scotland?
Westminster will not even know, and care even less, that some years ago in Falkirk new playing fields were laid out for a local secondary school and not long after, a huge hole developed in the middle, down into part of the uncharted old mine-workings below.
But so what? There is money to be made, and tax gain for the Treasury. Has our government the courage, for example, to use transport powers to ban any access roads, heavy traffic and drilling equipment around the site, to prevent this threat of subsidence to hundreds of properties in the Falkirk area?
The passing of the Continuity Bill was indeed an example of this kind of imagination and determination, but after it was challenged and was found to be within competence at the time it became law, in all but one aspect, why were adjustments not made and the originally valid Bill not confirmed in law?
The Referendums Bill is another example, but what will happen when that is challenged? With the Claim of Right now accepted by Westminster, should that not be strong enough reason for us to ignore any objections?
That surely constitutes the right of our Holyrood government to abide by and implement any Bills passed by a majority of those elected to represent them by a majority of Scottish voters.
Holyrood, if you are a listening government, please listen to this. Let us show some real backbone.
L McGregor
Falkirk
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