How the SNP broke Holyrood

Twenty-five years have passed since the opening of the Scottish parliament and the issue of just how well devolution is working is a rather awkward one for the current SNP-led government. This week, both the Scottish Conservative and Scottish Labour parties have made entirely clear that reform is needed. Labour believes that Scottish mayors might be the answer; some Conservatives want a complete overhaul of the way laws are scrutinised. The question is: would either solution work?

The fact that the SNP broke the Scottish parliament is hardly new. It became clear in 2014, during a meeting of Holyrood’s European and External Affairs Committee. An expert witness, law professor Adam Tomkins and former Scottish Conservative MSP, had the audacity to contradict the SNP’s narrative about relations with the EU post-independence. It was at a time that the SNP, led then by Alex Salmond, was in full campaign mode and, with the ‘indyref’ just around the corner, the nationalists were firefighting on a number of fronts where they had no credible answers – from currency to pensions to borders.