SPREAD these 10 words far and wide, for these 10 words say everything that is wrong about this dis-United Kingdom.
“The UK Parliament is sovereign, the Scottish Parliament is not.”
With this one sentence during his long, complex and polite submission to the UK Supreme Court, the Advocate General for Scotland, Lord Richard Sanderson Keen, Baron Keen of Elie, bared Westminster’s teeth and snarled the truth.
To repeat, Keen said: “The UK Parliament is sovereign, the Scottish Parliament is not.”
You would hardly expect a former chairman of the Scottish Conservatives to say anything else, and strictly in legal terms he is quite correct, for indeed the Scottish Parliament is not legally sovereign.
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But oh, my dear Lord Keen, what a colossal error you have made. For every true Scot reading those words of yours will howl their protest at you and your friends in Westminster and the various Unionist branch offices in Scotland, and this is what they will say …
It is the Scottish PEOPLE who are sovereign, and not the Queen, nor any parliament, nor any court – sovereignty in Scotland resides with the people of Scotland, and they and they alone must define the future of this country. At least we now know what Westminster really thinks of us …
The 10 words were said in the UK Supreme Court, which has been asked by the Westminster Government to decide whether the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Legal Continuity) (Scotland) Bill, passed by 94 votes to 30 in the Scottish Parliament on March 21, is within the “legislative competence” of Holyrood.
It’s a fair question, particularly since the Westminster Parliament passed the European Union (Withdrawal) Act on June 26 after it was railroaded through both Houses of Parliament by a Tory Government hell-bent on Brexit at all costs.
Keen was first to address the seven justices in the UK Supreme Court. There were no wigs or gowns on show in the televised court, and while its president, Lady Hale, wore a fetching yellow and white butterfly brooch, no significance should be attached to that.
With hundreds of pages of submissions and tough questions to answer in the court, it was no wonder that the Advocate General sometimes got a bit lost.
However, their lordships helped out and it has to be said that Keen put the UK Government’s case with vigour during nearly three-and-a-half hours of spoken submissions that added to the 53-page written submission made jointly by the Advocate General and the UK Government’s Attorney General.
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Occasionally he and his opponent, Scotland’s Lord Advocate James Wolffe, appeared discomfited by questions put to them by justices such as Lord Sumption, reputedly the cleverest man in the UK, but they always quickly regained their composure.
Again and again, Keen referred to the “sovereign Parliament” and also repeated a phrase whose orotundity he clearly enjoyed: “The constitutional kaleidoscope has been shaken.”
That is certainly true.
It all ended at 4pm and we are back today at 10.30am.
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