THE Scottish Government will urge MSPs to withhold consent for Boris Johnson's Brexit bill.
Last night MPs backed the UK Government’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) in principal, but rejected the Prime Minister’s attempt to get it through the Commons in just three days, leaving the legislation in limbo.
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That means it is unlikely now that MSPs will need to be recalled to Holyrood tomorrow.
The WAB – the legislation to give legal effect to his deal with the EU – was published late on Monday. It lists areas where the UK Parliament will need to legislate in devolved areas.
Normally, under the Sewel Convention, this wouldn’t happen without the Scottish Parliament’s consent. With SNP, Labour, LibDem and Green MSPs all likely to vote to refuse consent, Westminster would need to impose WAB to get it through if a vote was to take place.
It would be only the second time in Holyrood’s 20-year history that the UK Government has overruled the devolved parliament.
In a letter to Tory Brexit minister James Duddridge, Scottish Brexit minister Michael Russell said that leaving the EU was “not the will of the people of Scotland”, and, he added, Johnson’s deal “will be damaging to Scotland and to the United Kingdom”.
He went on: “This is one of the most important pieces of legislation ever to be considered by the UK and Scottish parliaments as the implementation of the withdrawal agreement involves a fundamental adjustment to the constitution of our nations.
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“It is essential that it should receive scrutiny in all of the UK’s legislatures, that there should be the proper opportunity for civil society to consider it and for citizens to understand its meaning and significance, and for all constitutional conventions, including the Sewel Convention, to be respected during its passage.”
Tory constitution spokesman Adam Tomkins claimed the SNP were thinking only of independence: “The SNP Government has calculated which course of action is most likely to drive up grievance and resentment, then acted accordingly.
“This isn’t an administration serious about making Brexit work for the people of Scotland. It wants to do the opposite, and is now openly coveting a No-Deal scenario because it thinks that will boost support for separation.
“As a government, the SNP’s behaviour has been abhorrent, and is an insult to the people it is meant to be governing.”
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour shared analysis from the GMB union that claimed Johnson’s Brexit deal could put up to 329,400 in Scotland at risk.
Shadow Scottish secretary Lesley Laird said: “Believe it or not, the deal the Prime Minister has negotiated with the EU is even worse than Theresa May’s deal. It would lead to a decade of deregulation and a trade deal with Donald Trump that would sell off our NHS and put our manufacturing industries seriously at risk.”
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