A Brexit ‘power grab’ could play into the SNP’s hands

The stramash between Theresa May’s government in London and Nicola Sturgeon’s ministry in Edinburgh over the need for the devolved parliaments to consent to the UK government’s EU withdrawal bill is, as the wags say, the world’s most boring constitutional crisis. So much so, indeed, that many voters in Scotland – to say nothing of elsewhere in the realm – remain splendidly indifferent to it. 

The Scottish parliament yesterday refused to give its consent to the withdrawal bill. Legally, this changes little. Politically, it has the potential to change many things. Nicola Sturgeon, with the support of Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens, says she is “protecting devolution” and standing up for the Scottish parliament. 

No self-respecting Scottish government, of any party, could allow Westminster to unilaterally legislate in areas that would have been devolved had the UK not been a member of the EU and had the devolution acts been drafted in the same way as they were drafted a generation ago.