Wings Over Scotland

This blog doesn't share the eagerness of much of the centre-left to either abolish the House of Lords or make it an elected body. Politicians pandering to the public's most primitive prejudices in pursuit of power are responsible for much of the atrocious state of British democracy, and while we're uneasy with the exercise of mostly-unearned privilege, the Lords were responsible for obstructing some of Tony Blair's worst attacks on civil liberties, and have been the only voice speaking up against the coalition's brutal welfare "reforms". We're not so sure we trust them less than MPs, who regularly stand for election promising one thing then do the precise opposite in government.

There's also nothing exclusive to the Lords about ham-fisted attempts to insert ludicrous amendments into new bills. But it so happens that the most recent example has come from that direction. Conservative hereditary peer the Earl Of Caithness (who owes his position to ancestors over 600 years ago) has put forward a series of extraordinary alterations to the unloved Scotland Bill, currently making its weary way towards a likely rejection by the Scottish Parliament. They're unlikely to be passed, but even the attempt reveals a great deal about the mindset of Scottish Unionists.

The bill can be seen here, and we've highlighted the relevant passages in the screenshot below.

The good Lord is endeavouring firstly to ensure that if Scotland votes Yes in the referendum, it will not be allowed to actually withdraw from the Union unless a second, UK-wide, referendum is held and also results in a Yes vote. Quite aside from the fact that any such open breach of the UN Charter on self-determination would turn the UK into an outlaw state and possibly start a civil war, it's hard to imagine the rest of the UK voting to force a Scotland which had chosen independence to remain in the Union.

(Also, since the Treaty was explicitly between Scotland and England, it's difficult to see what business it would be of Wales and Northern Ireland's at all.)

More interesting, though, is the quite astonishingly transparent attempt to break Scotland up for parts should it choose independence. Orkney, Shetland and Rockall are of course by far the most strategically significant parts of Scottish territory, for various reasons. The Earl's desire to subject the first two – and only them – to what would in effect be their own mini-referenda is, to say the least, a difficult one to justify in any rational or democratic way. Why not Edinburgh? Why not Glasgow? Why not Auchtermuchty? Why, come to that, not Newcastle or Carlisle or Liverpool?

Surely if we're asking individual parts of the country whether they want to be part of an independent Scotland or not, in a sort of bizarre constitutional pick'n'mix irrespective of geographical location, we shouldn't restrict it to what's currently considered Scottish? Liverpool might well prefer taking its chances with the SNP rather than entrust itself to the tender mercies of the Tories. If Orkney gets special dispensation just because it happens to be wealthy from oil, why shouldn't Aberdeen or Buncefield? And why should Orkney's only choices be Scotland or the UK? Shouldn't it also get to vote about whether it goes back to Norway?

Even in the senile-old-colonel environment of the Lords, the flat-out stealing of Rockall (which is uninhabited, and therefore unable to express a preference) is even more bonkers. The Rockall Act of 1972 proclaimed the island to be part of Inverness-shire. The notion that the UK can simply help itself to any part of Scotland it feels like if nobody lives there harks back to the days of the Wild West, when the first person to stick a flag into a piece of ground could claim it as their own. Would Inverness itself be safe? We could probably wave goodbye to all of the prettier parts of the Highlands, with any scattered crofters swiftly dispersed by a new round of Clearances.

The Earl's amendment is obviously laughable. But the fact that it should even have been proposed with a straight face exposes the regard in which the Scottish people are held by the UK establishment. We hope they remember that come autumn 2014.