SIR Keir Starmer, Labour MP for an English constituency, wants to have devolution rolled out to take power away from Westminster.
He does not realise that his vague words are actually directed to an English audience in the unspecified English “regions”.
In Scotland (Wales and Northern Ireland), there already are forms of devolution in place. They were to be extended in Scotland by the Vow from North Briton Gordon Brown, but it flopped. It was a deception, a lie even, as it was opposed by the Labour party in Scotland and at Westminster.
In one point we can agree with Sir Keir’s idea to take power away from Westminster. In Scotland’s case, after our vote to remain in the EU was denied by Westminster, we will take full powers back from Westminster and make our own independent decisions from then on. As long as there can be returning English Tory governments, devolution for Scotland cannot be guaranteed. Anyhow, Sir Keir is not in government yet and we are not going to wait. Labour have deep troubles in England and are fading away in Scotland.
We do not need to wait for an English MP to “offer” anything as we can see that power devolved is power retained and can even be grabbed back! In fact, in an independent Scotland we won’t need to bother about English MPs condescending to patronise us with “offers” and soppy words!
Post-2014, the true nastiness of the Union has become more real and all pervasive. Holyrood has had to mitigate the worst excesses of Westminster policy by using its devolved budget to fight Westminster-imposed austerity.
Sir Keir Starmer offers nothing. Too late! Labour’s actions in Westminster on the Internal Market Bill lately revealed its Westminster centralistic hardwiring.
Let Sir Keir put his England to right, it needs to happen there. We will leave the Union and let them got their own way.
John Edgar
Kilmaurs
DOES “SIR” Keir Stammer think we all button up the back up here in Scottyland? He is now going to offer us phase two of federalism when he gets into power, which by all accounts will be at least four years from now and going by the recent polls maybe another ten years at least.
Does he not know that we were told we would the most best-est federal country in the universe in 2014 by another failed politician and Labour leader Gordon Brown? You really could not make it up. This is a leader with one –YES, ONE – MP in the whole of Scottyland and he thinks he will dictate to us what is best for the natives up here in the far north.
Does he not read the polls? 17 for independence at the last count. We up here have been totally ignored by both Tories and Labour since 2014 and now they are panicking and will offer us anything to shut us up, maybe even the mace in the house of ill repute.
It won’t be long until he is found wanting and kicked of the top of the greasy pole into obscurity where he belongs. Freedom is coming; hang in there.
Michael McDermott
via email
THERE’S nothing left in this Union for Scotland – we were not even consulted about the momentous constitutional implications of Brexit.
Scotland has now got little in common with the ambitions of any English/UK government, so why bother spending years waiting on a party that is not in power and has already decided that freedom to leave the Union will no longer be an option?
Let’s become an independent country with control over our borders, waters and airspace and all the assets that they contain so that these can be sustainably exploited for the benefit of the Scottish people.
We can then negotiate trade agreements with countries willing to give and take, quite different from the UK, which takes 92% of our oil income and gives us 59% of its annual deficit.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
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