FARCICAL scenes in the House of Commons last night ended with the debate over the fate of Holyrood post-Brexit being given just 15 minutes in the chamber, with not one Scottish MP allowed to speak.
In a chaotic day at Westminster, after voting on other amendments to the Brexit repeal bill took almost three hours, there were only a handful of minutes left to discuss Clause 15 of the EU Withdrawal Bill, and the only person to speak in the debate about it was Tory Cabinet Secretary David Lidington.
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When it came to a vote, Labour abstained. That meant the Government won 321 votes to 40.
Michael Russell, the Scottish Government’s Brexit Secretary, was stunned. He called it a “dark day for devolution”.
“For almost 20 years, decisions made by the Scottish Parliament on issues affecting devolution have been final. Today, the UK Government tore up the constitutional rule-book and imposed its will in the face of an overwhelming vote in the Scottish Parliament.
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“The fact that they railroaded this measure through with no time for speeches from anyone other than the UK Government minister shows utter contempt for Scottish democracy. This is a dark day for devolution.
“Forcing through a law that could freeze the powers of the Parliament for up to seven years without its consent means our hands will be tied in relation to farming, fishing, the environment, food standards and a host of other devolved area.
“The UK Government today had a duty to amend the bill to respect the will of the Scottish Parliament. They failed to do so.
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“Further Brexit bills will also require the consent of the Scottish Parliament – and yet the UK Government has decided to use this moment to tear up the rules that have until now protected devolution.
“We will reflect on this situation carefully as we consider next steps.”
Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell said he believed a deal could still be reached.
He said: “We talked about it right up to the last minute, but we’re just not in agreement on the interpretation of our constitution.
“What we’ve got is the constitutional settlement that people voted for in the 2014 referendum. People in Scotland accepted the settlement.
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“The SNP and Nicola Sturgeon don’t accept the current settlement – they want independence, so I can understand why they don’t like the arrangement. But it is in accordance with the constitution as we have it, so the bill will proceed.”
“We won’t be power-grabbing, we won’t be overriding the Scottish Parliament, we’ll be seeking their consent on all the matters this bill relates to.”
Following the vote, the First Minister tweeted: “The Tories couldn’t have made it any clearer today that they have no respect for @ScotParl.
“Never again will the line that Scotland is an equal partner in Westminster system be believed. The decision to act without our consent, and the manner of doing it, will not be forgotten.”
Labour’s Ian Murray hit out at the SNP for attacking Labour’s decision to abstain, saying his party made the move because of parliamentary procedure. This was “ping pong” he said, meaning that the bill was now going to be going to and fro between the Lords and the Commons.
“Before the SNP start jumping up and down, this is Lords ping pong and if we were to defeat the Government on the compromise amendment from the Lords it would revert back to the unamended clause which everyone, including the Tories, thought was deficient. Ping pong is take it or lose it.”
But Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, said Labour had been complicit in rejecting devolution.
“Events in Westminster have been absolutely outrageous,” Blackford said.
“The Tories campaigned against the Scottish Parliament in 1997 and now they are actively dismantling it – they really think they can do anything they want to Scotland and get away with it.
“For Labour to abstain on a devolution vote is gob-smacking. It is a complete dereliction of duty from the so-called party of devolution.
“History will remember this defining moment when the UK Parliament chose to reject devolution. This will haunt the Scottish Tories, and now Scottish Labour, for a generation.”
In one particularly grim moment, when Blackford raised a point of order, asking what Scottish MPs could do, Tory Ian Liddell-Grainger shouted “suicide”.
He was later reprimanded by the Speaker.
It was a successful day for Theresa May and her Tories. They managed to undo all 15 amendments made to the EU Withdrawal Bill by the Lords.
When the debate started early in the afternoon, defeat looked all but certain on the “meaningful vote” amendment.
This would give the Commons a final say after the Brexit deal had been agreed between London and Brussels.
David Davis said during a radio interview that giving MPs a meaningful vote could lead to the referendum result being reversed.
“We will put in front of Parliament the decision for them to vote, after that there will be a process of primary legislation to put the actual details of it in Parliament so Parliament will actually decide on the application of the detail.”
Asked what would happen if they voted against the deal, he said: “If they throw it out, well they throw it out.”
The Tory rebels called for compromise, but the Government insisted it would not do so.
Compromise, it said, would weaken the country’s negotiating position.
The Government then appeared to compromise.
Just moments before voting began, the Prime Minister held talks with 14 Tory rebels in her Commons office, including Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general who had tabled an amendment that meant had the UK and EU not been able to agree a deal, or if MPs rejected the deal on offer in the autumn, Parliament would have input from the end of November onwards.
They were promised substantial changes, and that amendments would be made to the bill by the Government when it heads back to the Lords on Monday.
That was enough to swing it for the backbenchers. The Government won comfortably, 324 votes to 298.
Later, Davis’s Brexit department seemed to suggest that the Government was already going back on its promise to the rebels.
A spokesman said: “On the meaningful vote we have agreed to look for a compromise when this goes back to the Lords.
“We have not, and will not, agree to the House of Commons binding the Government’s hands in the negotiations.”
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