Parcel o’ Rogues: Scotland’s parliament reverts to type

This week the Scottish parliament had an opportunity to recover its authority and credibility by expressing its lack of confidence in a scandal-ridden First Minister whose tenure of power is a national humiliation for Scots, repairing the damaged institutions of the devolved settlement and restoring accountable governance to the Scottish public. How did it respond to that opportunity?

Pathetically, is the answer. The division vote on the no confidence motion tells its own story: For 31; Against 65; Abstentions 27. All of those voting for the motion were Conservatives, apart from one Reform MSP and one Liberal Democrat; the Against votes were a straight roll-call of the SNP, plus the five Greens. But the most pathetic contribution was the complete abstention of Labour MSPs and all but one Liberal Democrat; they were joined in the cop-out lobby by Andy Wightman, the swing vote on the inquiry committee, refusing to follow the logic of his committee vote.

There are parliamentary occasions when abstention is a legitimate course of action; but that can never be the case with a motion of no confidence. One either has confidence in the government or minister being held accountable, or one does not. The blanket abstention by Labour was cowardly and will do them no good at the May elections. It also ended the brief perception of Anas Sarwar as a possible regenerator of Scottish Labour and of left-of-centre Unionism. His speech showed him more preoccupied with tribal ranting against the Tories than in holding a badly discredited separatist administration to account.

He hoped it was the Conservatives’ penultimate day as the second party in the Scottish parliament: this partisan jockeying for second place betrayed Sarwar’s lack of vision, his failure to acknowledge the harm Sturgeon is doing to Scotland and to offer a social democratic alternative. It was straight out of the Keir Starmer playbook. Sarwar is standing against Sturgeon in the Glasgow Southside constituency; when he attacks her record at the hustings, how can he respond to the accusation from sceptics that he gave her a free pass when he had the opportunity to put on record his disapproval of her conduct?

Sturgeon, for her part, will be able to claim that almost one hundred MSPs out of 128 refused to condemn her. The inadequate fig-leaf grasped by the Labour and Lib Dem sell-outs who succoured Sturgeon was the findings of the Hamilton inquiry. Nothing could be less persuasive: it was never likely that a single individual would produce a verdict that would bring down a first minister, unless he had overwhelming evidence, and the Sturgeon administration made sure he had as little as possible, while confining his remit to tramlines that made his potential findings relatively unthreatening.

You might think that the Labour MSPs who, en bloc, let Sturgeon off the hook will surely face a grilling from their constituents. Sorry, what constituents? Of the 22 abstaining Labour heroes, 19 have never been voted into parliament by anyone. They are so-called “regional list” MSPs, appointed off lists approved by Party leaders. Both Labour and their SNP colleagues (in every sense) are fond of disparaging the unelected House of Lords; but that is merely a revising chamber – such as Holyrood does not have – and all members of the House of Commons are directly elected by constituents. But, of the 129 members of the Scottish parliament, 56 are appointees, selected from regional lists. So, more than 40 per cent of MSPs are unaccountable to the electorate.

Add to that the absence of separation of powers in Scotland and it is easy to discern why it is the most misgoverned part of the United Kingdom. With such a composition, David Davis’s well-intentioned thesis that the Scottish parliament needs more power is unpersuasive, unless significant constitutional reform is implemented first. The Scottish parliamentary voting system is an abuse; it needs to be radically reformed.

It is in no way hyperbole to state that tyranny is now institutionalised in Scotland. On 10 March, the Scottish Hate Crime Bill was passed at Holyrood, by a majority of 82-32, with four abstentions. This totalitarian legislation which criminalises expressions of opinion by citizens in their own homes was imposed, by the will of a mere 82 individuals, upon a population of more than five million. Those 82 included 23 list MSPs, unaccountable to any constituents: take away their contribution and there is no longer a parliamentary majority for that atrocious legislation. One Conservative MSP (a list member, of course) voted for this freedom-crushing law, which his Party is now pledged to repeal.

This is a travesty of democracy. Only 59 MSPs can be called to account by constituents for the snuffing out of freedom of expression – the most fundamental of civil liberties – in Scotland. How much longer can Scots be expected to tolerate this Stalinist style of government? The Scottish parliament has had a disreputable career, beginning with the massive scandal over the parliament building and MSPs’ awarding of medals to themselves on the first day it sat – presumably on the realistic recognition that few people would want to give them medals at any subsequent stage of their careers.

This is the parliament that expended an unwarrantable amount of taxpayers’ money on the preparation of a bill to ban fur farming in Scotland, only to discover, well into the expensive process, that there were no fur farms in the country; some of us thought it should have doubled up by banning bullfighting as well. In those days, the wee pretendy parliament was a laughing stock, but regarded as relatively harmless. Now, under the iron grip of the SNP, it is harmless no more.

On the contrary, it is extinguishing constitutional proprieties, personal freedom and democracy itself north of the Border. The SNP has been in power for 14 years, during which healthcare, education and other public services have been atrociously neglected: on the SNP’s watch, Scotland has tumbled down the OECD schools league tables from 10^th and 11^th place for Science and Maths, to 27^th and 30^th respectively. Unusually, the parliament defeated the SNP on a vote forcing the government to publish a damning OECD report on Scottish schools ahead of the May elections. That was in mid-February and Sturgeon is still contemptuously defying that vote, fobbing off MSP’s by publishing the government’s own “Initial Evidence Pack” which it submitted to the OECD.

Even if the eunuch legislators had expressed no confidence in her, it is almost certain that she would have carried on regardless. This scandalous situation should prompt Scottish electors to ask themselves what precisely they are voting for in May. Is it a democratic parliament, or a flimsy camouflage for arbitrary rule by a self-appointed elite? In Scottish folk memory it is all dismally reminiscent of the effete Scottish parliament – the “Parcel o’ Rogues” – that voted itself out of existence, for a bribe of £12,000, in 1707. Unhappily, there is no prospect of the current rogues doing the same.

Scots need to waken up to the alarming situation where there is no separation of powers in their devolved constitutional settlement, a discredited first minister cannot be removed from office, more than 40 per cent of their “representatives” are no such thing, and unelected MSPs have provided the majority for the enactment of draconian legislation that could put them in prison for opinions voiced in their own homes. Whatever this dystopian situation is, it is not parliamentary democracy in any recognisable sense. It is time to challenge all the false premises of Scotland’s deeply flawed devolution settlement and restore decency to governance north of the Border.