I WOULD not disagree with Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp’s column except that the Tories are likely to withhold consent to any future indyref request (Westminster is starting to dismantle devolution for Scotland, June 14).
Not only does withholding the repatriated EU powers meet with future needs to trade off Scottish resources in future trade and commercial deals, but it has the secondary effect of potentially fatally undermining the devolved administration. Building up any form of political will in retaining meaningful devolution would be lost on the current Labour party, the main opposition at Westminster, as they have little to gain.
There seems little that the Scottish Government and their Westminster MPs can do other than expose this dismantling of devolution at every opportunity as Ian Blackford achieved on Wednesday, stunt or not.
However, faced with the present Tory and Unionist administration, the only realistic way of protecting the Scottish devolution settlement might now lie in the unlikely event of a Brexit reversal.
Peter Gorrie
Edinburgh
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