I HOPE you’re happy now, Scottish people, you’ll have had your consultation. Theresa came, she saw, and she hunkered down in a leather factory in Bridge of Weir. Possibly she was hoping that they could manufacture her a new hide, because in her dealings with Scotland she needs a thick skin to go along with her brass neck.

Even Gordie Broon in his famous interventions managed to pace up and down a room giving a speech in front of party hacks and journalists, people who, in other words, had attended the event in the full knowledge of what they were going to be getting. Theresa couldn’t even manage that much. Instead she had a captive audience of factory workers who’d turned up for their shifts with no idea that they were going to be wordless extras in Theresa May’s Brexit Consultation: The Movie.

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It’s a horror film, as you might expect from anything that features Jacob Rees-Mogg, who always manages to give the impression that he’s touting high class funeral services. Which in fact, he is.

Much has been written this week about the shameful exclusion of The National from Theresa May’s non-listening event. Sadly, that’s just one symptom of a much deeper and very dangerous contempt that this Conservative Government has for being held to account, and indeed for the democratic process itself.

The UK is already a country where, thanks to its unwritten constitution, has few effective checks and balances on the powers of the executive branch of government. This government has used Brexit to mount an effective coup, using the excuse of respecting the will of the people as a cover while it works to concentrate power even further in the office of the Prime Minister.

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This Government has used Brexit as an opportunity to do something that the Tories have always wanted to do, and that’s to attack the devolution settlement. The Conservatives opposed devolution, and they’ve never liked the idea that Scotland should be allowed to crack open the lid of its Union flag bedecked shortbread tin and bask in the light of being a constituent and founding member of this so-called United Kingdom.

You hear it in the constant comparisons of Scotland with parts of England. You hear it every time one of the metrocommentariat says that Scotland is no more deserving of special treatment in the Brexit deal than any Remain-voting part of England is. In the eyes of the Conservative party, Scotland is a possession, and they are determined to remind us of our lesser status.

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The UK is already the most centralised country in Europe. With their attack on devolution the Conservatives have made it clear that they intend to ensure that the UK remains that way.

The fact that Scotland overwhelmingly voted for the current devolution settlement in a referendum in 1997 and then voted for the promises of the anti-independence parties in the referendum of 2014, parties who told us that they were going to strengthen and reinforce that devolution settlement, means nothing to this Government. Only those referendums which Theresa May can use to further empower herself and the office of the Prime Minister need to be respected.

Refusing access to newspapers that you don’t like is dictatorial behaviour. Traducing the promises that you made to win referendums is dictatorial behaviour. Those are bad enough, yet there was an even clearer example of dictatorial behaviour from Theresa May’s Government this week. The Government has refused to release to Parliament the full legal advice that it received relating to Theresa May’s Brexit deal. This is despite the fact that the House of Commons passed a binding motion obliging the Government to release the advice. It’s a clear example of contempt of Parliament.

The reason that the British Government is refusing to reveal the full advice is of course because that advice will show that Theresa has been lying to us. If the advice fully supported her position, she’d have no problems releasing it. Reports this week have said that sources within the cabinet have admitted that the legal advice makes it clear that the exit mechanism to the Northern Irish backstop which the Government has is meaningless, and that in reality the EU does indeed have an effective veto. Theresa has spent the last couple of weeks insisting the opposite. Now the Conservative party is claiming that the Government shouldn’t be forced to release legal advice because it would damage the national interest. What they really mean of course is the Conservative party interest.

This is a Government which has embarked on a reckless Brexit process claiming that by doing so it’s acting to restore the full sovereignty of the British parliament. It’s difficult to imagine a clearer example of political hypocrisy when that same Government is ignoring parliament when MPs seek to exercise their sovereign right to hold the Government to account. Scotland, you’ll have had your consultation, and the UK, you’ll have had your sovereign Parliament.