In a very specific and limited way, I have concerns about the Internal Market bill. It’s not a bad bill; on the whole, it is a welcome piece of legislation that attempts to bring some cogency to regulation and practice as we exit the EU. The bill will make it easier to trade and contract with and within the UK, standardising and simplifying a regulatory terrain that currently resembles the obstacle course at Sandhurst. It also establishes in black and white UK ministers’ power to invest directly in devolved nations, including via transfers to local authorities.
Since the first hint of the bill’s contents, the SNP has been squalling that the UK government is mounting a ‘power grab’ to undermine their bailiwick of belligerence at Holyrood. (If only the actual UK government was half as enterprising as the one that stalks the imagination of the SNP.) Now that the direct funding mechanism is public knowledge, the separatists and some devocrats are splenetic at the thought of the United Kingdom government governing the United Kingdom.
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