THE Scottish Government seems to have lost the plot.
There can be little argument with the principle of the hate crime legislation, which will probably bed in over time once the fanatics have got it out of their systems, and which received broad support when it passed through parliament. However, the current obsession with “niche radicalism” rather than concentration on issues impacting the population as a whole is making it increasingly difficult for those of us who support the government to defend its priorities.
The long promised and never delivered replacement for council tax and the disappointingly timorous plans for land reform, not to mention the never-ending ferries debacle and general public transport woes, are negatively impacting the lives of many potential independence supporters across the country.
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In addition, the upcoming – and no doubt well-meaning – regulation of heating systems in buildings to help deliver the aspiration of greenhouse gas reduction, without addressing the fundamental issue of affordability properly, will generate significant costs not only for homeowners, but also for both social and private landlords.
In the good old days before the Thatcherite revolution it was assumed that work carried out for the public good would be funded from the public purse. I don’t remember receiving a bill from the Gas Board when they converted my appliances, and the rest of the production, transmission, distribution and utilisation systems, to accept cleaner and cheaper natural gas.
Incidentally, in those days the liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the new ferries would have been supplied from the British Gas liquefaction and storage facility at Glenmavis, which was equipped with truck loading bays to supply LNG to remote gas hubs around Scotland. Today it will have to be trucked, surprise, surprise, from the south-east of England.
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Back to my initial point, though. The radical green agenda will only gain widespread support if it is embedded in a broader integrated framework based on truly radical economic and social principles, starting with a credible plan to finance it. Whether we like it or not, most people are, at least to some extent, inherently selfish so political parties only get elected when the general population can see something to their personal benefit in the party’s policies.
The only way to regain momentum in the drive for independence at the moment is to find a way to win a majority of votes – not, repeat not, a majority of seats – in the General Election. The SNP achieved 50% of the popular vote in 2015 so it’s achievable, but making Scotland Tory-free isn’t the way to make it happen. Only specifically targeting 50%+ will get us there.
Only attracting soft Yes supporters, mainly from Labour and the LibDems, can do it, and that’s only going to be done by constructing a positive vision, backed up by concrete building blocks, while simultaneously demonstrating that a change in the occupancy of 10 Downing Street will change nothing significant for the better. Every interview given by a member of the shadow cabinet provides clear evidence of this. We should be playing them on a loop on every billboard in Scotland.
Cameron Crawford
Rothesay
THE Scottish people have been missing from the debate over the Scottish Government’s controversial Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform Bill that’s wending its way through parliament. Proposed changes to the Scottish constitution should trigger a mandatory referendum where the people, not parliament, decide. This bill proposes two constitutional changes – ditching both the “not proven” verdict and juries for rape cases.
It’s international practice that constitutional change be approved by the people in a referendum. The Scottish Government recently endorsed this principle when it stated: “A constitution … should not be vulnerable to change at the whim of the government of the day or of a simple majority in parliament.”
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Mandatory referendums are one component – others are optional referendums and popular initiatives – of direct political rights under a system of direct democracy, which give the people the final say on proposed constitutional changes.
And because Scotland’s constitutional basis is popular sovereignty, where the people are sovereign over parliament (as opposed to England’s parliamentary sovereignty), political rights such as mandatory referendums should exist.
Furthermore, Article 25 of the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the UK ratified in 1976, states that direct political rights are a fundamental human right of all citizens. And yet the Scottish Government has failed to incorporate direct political rights into legislation.
This bill is a direct attack on Scotland’s constitutional principle of popular sovereignty and contravenes Article 25 of the UN Covenant in which all citizens have an inalienable right to directly participate in the running of the country. If it’s rammed through parliament without a referendum, then we’ll know once and for all that the Scottish Government is no more than a colonial administration, operating on the basis of English parliamentary sovereignty.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh
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