NICOLA Sturgeon yesterday delivered a direct message to David Cameron on the Trade Union Bill currently making its way through the UK Parliament, which seeks to curb trade union powers as well as throttle their funding. “If the Tories have any respect whatsoever for the democratic process in Scotland," she said, "they will drop this bill and they will drop it now.”
The message appears to forget one thing. When was the last time the Tories showed any respect for the democratic process in Scotland, or for that matter for Holyrood, which we have heard referred to disparagingly as the “Peedie Parliament” on more than one occasion?
Sturgeon told delegates at the Unite union conference that the Scottish Government would not “willingly voluntarily cooperate with”, or implement the Bill.
Her words were welcomed by Unite, and may have gone some way to fostering the “critical friendship” Unite boss Len McCluskey seeks with the SNP. If he and his members would support a move to have responsibility for trade union and employment laws passed to Holyrood, that would be a winner all round.
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