Interesting words from the House of Lords Constitution Committee. http://www.parliament.uk/business/c...ion-committee/news/scottish-report-published/
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Implications of Scottish Independence
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Rolfe
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I should bloody well hope not! It's ludicrous that this even needs to be said, but the way a lot of these guys are behaving right now you'd think their entire aim in life was to destroy their own country - and that they intend to go right on doing that after a Yes vote, continuing to do Westminster's bidding.
They're going to have to change sides after a Yes vote, and I'm not at all sure many of them understand this. Mickey Moore does, and said so, and promptly got sacked as SoS.
The Scottish government keeps saying magnanimous stuff about an inclusive all-party team negotiating for Scotland, and the ordinary punters rise up and declare, just so long as there are no Labour, LibDem or Tory MPs or MSPs in it! How could we possibly trust them to act in Scotland's interests when they've spent the past God-knows-how-many years telling us we're useless and Big Brother Westminster is to be obeyed in all things?
Rolfe.
Is that really in response to the staid, dull piece Craig linked to? A Lords committee report on Westminster procedural issues post a putative yes vote somehow generates a rant like this in response? One-eyed myopia at work.
I don't accept that these are all "procedural issues". Some of them look like constitutional decisions. I think they may be challenged, and I await reaction to this with interest.
Although published prior to yesterday's announcement - and I share your views, Craig - I thought this was rather interesting:
http://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2014/01/14/nick-barber-after-the-vote/
Meanwhile, I always enjoyed this quote:
We can and must reflect on the ethical importance of respecting different, but deeply interwoven, narratives. Such reflection offers an opportunity to craft a bright future on the extensive common ground we share and, where we differ in matters of interpretation, to have respectful empathy for each other’s perspectives.
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Francesca R
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Skepticemea
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There's no constitutional requirement to act upon the results of any referendum at all.
Francesca R
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Technically a government could be elected in 2015 that told the Scottish government to go whistle in the breeze about independence even if the referendum carried a yes. (A tad unlikely though!)
There's no constitutional requirement to do anything whatsoever, whether the referendum is an agreed process or not. See Dicey, Law of the Constitution)
Skepticemea
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Indeed. One wonders whether a written constitution is required or whether it just forms a document over which arguments can be fomented (I shudder at the thought of US-style debates over whether a ban on the burning of live badgers is "unconstachooshunal" or not.)
Do self-evident truths have to be written down?
Do self-evident truths have to be written down?
Yes, if you consider it to be a "self-evident truth" that, as Dicey wrote, and quoted above
"Self-evident" things that are written down can be very odd, as we know. The writer of these words--and I have not the least doubt of his personal honesty--owned about four hundred chattel slaves during his lifetime.
LondonJohn
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Exactly so. The Scottish independence referendum - just like the anticipated referendum on continued UK membership of the EU - carries zero constitutional weight in a technical sense. However, there's an implicit understanding that the government of the day would respect and "obey" the outcomes of any such referendums.
But...... the crucially important thing about the Scottish independence outcome (if "Yes") is that the UK government of the day would only be beholden to honour the will of the Scottish electorate on terms that were equitable and acceptable to the rest of the the UK. As I've pointed out before, this would almost inevitably involve the appointment of a third-party arbiter to decide who owns what, who gets money from what, and who owes whom what, as well as a reasonable timetable for things to occur. I would have thought that the IMF would be the most obvious body to carry out this work, but there are other possible candidates.
What will happen is that the Westminster government (of the day) will pledge to act according to the rules laid down by this independent third party, and will require the Scottish government of the day to do the same. I imagine there will be some horsetrading and lobbying from both sides to try to sway the third party's point of view, but ultimately some form of independent view will be handed down like a tablet of stone, and both sides (Westminster and Holyrood) will have to honour it. Without a shadow of a doubt, it will involve iScotland assuming a certain proportion of the UK national debt via a mirroring agreement with rUK (since rUK will continue to hold and honour the original debt). It will also involve huge transfers of assets in both directions, and splits of assets and incomes in many key areas (notably oil/gas, certain manufacturing industries, and parts of the financial sector).
In short, it's inconceivable that any Westminster government of the day would refuse in principle to honour a "Yes" vote in the Scottish independence referendum. But they agreement to honour the outcome will only be conditional upon a fair and equitable separation, as decreed by an independent arbiter. In many ways, it's not entirely dissimilar to Partner A in a marriage suing Partner B for divorce: Partner B has to accept the divorce, but an independent arbiter (in this case the courts) will decide on an equitable split of assets, incomes, debts, other rights/obligations, which both parties will be required to accept.
LondonJohn
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PS: My suspicion is that all of the above will be moot and N/A anyhow......... 
LondonJohn
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Wow. More ridiculous invective.
Firstly, Rolfe doesn't seem to understand that this issue (the West Lothian Question writ large) is not about Westminster MPs for Scottish constituencies acting to iScotland's detriment if they are party to the Westminster position in the negotiations! It's the exact opposite: that the Scottish-based MPs have a clear incentive to skew things in a way that is favourable to iScotland. That's the basis for the argument to exclude them from the Westminster negotiating team.
Secondly, what's this nonsense about "changing sides" after a "Yes" vote? The MPs for Scottish constituencies (or, more accurately, those elected in the 2015 general election) would continue to represent those constituencies in Westminster up until the very day of full independence. After that, they would effectively be made redundant. They might (if they wished) choose to seek to become candidates either as MPs in rUK constituencies or as MSPs in iScotland constituencies. Talk of "changing sides" is inflammatory nonsense. The most that can be said is that a "Yes" vote would leave these MPs facing inevitable enforced redundancy.
Lastly, more puffed-up nonsense about the idea of an all-party group for Scotland in its negotiation team. What Rolfe cannot seemingly grasp is that this is virtual inevitability from an "acceptable practice" perspective, just as it is for any potential Westminster negotiating team. Imagine, for example, if independence negotiations were going on right now, and only ministers from the Con/Lib government were negotiating on behalf of rUK. That would be palpably stupid, unrepresentative and unfair. Instead, a cross-party group would be set up that accurately reflected the political spectrum across rUK. In fact, it's very possible (probable even) that this group would be set up upon "share of the popular vote" lines, rather than "share of MPs" lines, in order to most accurately reflect the political views of the population.
And just the same will happen in iScotland. It would be wrong and unfair for iScotland's negotiating team to consist purely of SNP MSPs, since this isn't a true reflection of the political landscape of the entire Scottish population. Instead, a cross-party group would be set up. Clearly there wouldn't be much (if any!) Conservative representation on that group, and the predominant proportion would be SNP (reflecting in both instances the relative support levels of both parties within Scotland).
The final sentence of Rolfe's post above pretty much sums up all that is offputting, distasteful and flat-out ludicrous about her arguments in so many areas of this debate. It's nothing more than hyperbolic, highly-partisan rhetoric that verges on paranoia and only (in my opinion) weakens her credibility in the debate. I yearn for sober, restrained argument, even if it's impossible to avoid it being tinged with partisan zeal.
mummymonkey
Did you spill my pint?
LondonJohn
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It would (in my view) be almost certain that it wouldn't be the Scottish portion of the UK general election that would serve as the pointer, but rather the elections to the Scottish Parliament. And since there's an element of proportional representation in the Scottish Parliament system, it would likely be appropriate to compose any all-party negotiating group in proportion to each party's number of seats in the Scottish Parliament. Currently these are:
SNP: 65
Labour: 37
Conservative: 15
LibDem: 5
Green: 2
Other: 4
Total: 129
So, as in the Scottish Parliament itself, the SNP would have a majority of members in the negotiating group. But the numbers also make it clear that it would be unrepresentative and unjust if the negotiating group consisted solely of SNP members.
anglolawyer
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[derail] why so many? 20 should be more than enough. Same with Westminster where there are currently about 1500 legislators. The US gets by with a third of this number.[/derail]
Strawberry
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So any word on how David Cameron's visit to Scotland went down with the locals? New opinion polls, press reaction, etc?
Major difference is that in UK system government ministers are members of the legislature. Therefore there have to be enough members of the legislature than you can select competent ministers from half that number and leave enough spare for backbenchers, career progression and weeding out the idiots.
Also I suspect if the numbers are too small then personalities become more important than policies.
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