Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Why Boris is losing his fight against Sturgeon

Gavin Barwell has made a good point, albeit inadvertently. Theresa May’s former chief of staff has a book out, imaginatively titled Chief of Staff, and in it he touches upon the question of Brexit and Scottish independence. Noting that Boris Johnson is unpopular north of the border, the now Baron Barwell of Croydon says:

‘The UK government is on strong ground arguing that it is not the right time for a second independence referendum — polls show Scottish voters want the immediate focus to be on recovery from the pandemic — but the democratic mandate for the question to be asked again at some point is clear.’


No. It. Is. Not.

I’ve already banged on at length about this mandate madness, but let me make a few points about the locution ‘democratic mandate’.

First, the mandate part. The idea that a mandate can be attained for the exercise of powers reserved to one parliament at an election to another parliament is to establish a constitutional principle. This places devolved legislatures on an equal footing with the sovereign Parliament that created them. It does more than that, though.

It confirms that devolution is exactly what Tam Dalyell warned it would be: ‘a motorway without exit to an independent state’. There are no devolved or reserved powers, no Scotland Act, no parliamentary sovereignty. Devolution, under the principle asserted by Barwell and others, is nothing more than a one-way ratchet to secession. For all the flaws in this principle, at least it’s honest.

Now, for the democratic bit. Here it is not so much a new principle as a new precedent being established, one that says: a mandate created in an election to any legislature in the UK is binding on Parliament, without regards to law or constitutional convention. Now, advocates of this position might cavil that they only have constitutional matters in mind, or solely the question of Scottish independence because Parliament has previously agreed to a referendum on that.










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