A WOMAN speaking to LBC's James O'Brien has made a compelling case for independence as she reeled off a list of the ways Westminster has “overruled” devolution.
It comes after the depute leader of the SNP Keith Brown called for the SNP to consider withdrawing MPs from Westminster following the chaos over the party’s debate on a Gaza ceasefire.
During a phone-in on LBC, one woman named Liz said she did not have “any faith in Westminster”.
“I think they are now using the Westminster powers to overrule decisions we made in Scotland,” she said.
'I've just had enough James.'
— LBC (@LBC) March 4, 2024
As the SNP deputy leader considers withdrawing the party's MPs from Westminster after the Gaza ceasefire vote chaos, Councillor Liz gives @mrjamesob examples of how it has 'overruled' decisions made in Scotland. pic.twitter.com/zn0uUI5qgf
The clip has been widely shared on social media with the caption: “As the SNP deputy leader considers withdrawing the party’s MPs from Westminster after the Gaza ceasefire vote chaos, Councillor Liz gives @mrjamesob examples of how it has ‘overruled’ decisions made in Scotland”.
Liz continued: “We passed the GRR here cross-party. We passed legislation to recycle plastics. Now, the only reason that was passed because we couldn’t possibly do it in Scotland if they hadn’t done it in England.
“There was no other reason for that. We’ve now got shops here that had machines put in to recycle that are not being used.”
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O’Brien at this point interjected to say he was not aware of some of the ways in which Westminster had overruled devolution.
In December, a court ruled that the UK Government could use a Section 35 order to block Scotland’s gender reforms from becoming law despite it being passed by two-thirds of MSPs in December 2022.
Meanwhile, in June 2023, Lorna Slater (below) announced Scotland’s deposit return scheme would be delayed until October 2025 at the earliest.
This came following a row with UK ministers over the inclusion of glass in the scheme.
The caller continued: “We wanted to incorporate the rights of the child into Scottish law and we couldn’t do that because if we did that it would make the two-child cap which is mitigated in Scotland, but it would make it illegal if we passed it into law because you couldn’t say one child’s got more rights than another.
“So we’ve had to go back… Emma Roddick who is our minister for equalities had to go back and look at that and we had to do huge mitigations to pass the rights of children into Scottish law because Westminster stopped it and I’ve just had enough James.”
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Bill had previously been passed unanimously by MSPs but was blocked by the Supreme Court after a challenge by UK ministers.
A revised version of the bill was unanimously passed in December 2023 which made Scotland the first devolved nation to incorporate the UN charter on children's rights into domestic law.
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