January 5, 2021 - 4:34pm
Mark Drakeford and Nicola Sturgeon always insist on Westminster respecting the devolution settlement, but there’s never much suggestion that they should do the same and defer to London on reserved policies.
How else, for example, could there be such a thing as ‘Scottish Government France’?
https://twitter.com/ScotGovFrance/status/1346080288145895424
In fact, as this FOI request from March reveals, this French outpost is part of a network of eight the Scottish Government maintains, with others in Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Ireland, the USA, and (cheekily) London.
It’s also, with a budget of £545,000, one of the cheapest. Brussels, the most expensive, has one of over £2 million, and the network overall ran to almost £7.6 million in 2019/20.
According to the Scottish Government’s latest budget, the purpose of all this duplication is for their representatives to “develop their influence and strengthen their relationships” in key nations. This includes promoting Scottish business and tourism, but also (as the budget given to Brussels makes plain) trying to woo international support for Scottish independence.
It is short on high-profile successes. The main dividend of the SNP’s outreach to Beijing — which has an obvious incentive to break up one of the key nations of the western alliance — ended up with the Scottish Government embroiled in a scandal over links to firms accused of corruption.
Opposition parties accused Nationalist ministers of trying to ‘tippex’ the involvement of China Railway out of the coverage of the controversial deal, which was also attacked by Amnesty International, as well as downplaying the role played by Brian Souter, a high-profile Scottish businessman and SNP donor.
Meanwhile their effort to fake European solidarity with Scotland was not only exposed as having been paid for by the Scottish Government but was reported to the police by EU officials.
But failure never discourages the demand for powers. Now the Nationalists are demanding “unfettered and unconditional access” to the entire British diplomatic network, in order to undermine British diplomacy and promote their own international agenda.
At the same time, they are duplicating DfID’s old role with a £10 million International Development Fund and a Humanitarian Emergency Fund, all whilst demanding more money from London to address bread-and-butter issues at home.
In doing this, the SNP are undermining Britain’s global position at just the moment the Government is trying to re-establish it post-Brexit. If Boris Johnson is serious about re-asserting Westminster’s rightful prerogatives, he could do worse than explore ways to limit, or prohibit, the duplication of reserved functions by devolved administrations.
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SubscribeA question for the government why has the UK funded extravagances such as a Scottish foreign aid budget when foreign policy is a reserved matter outside the scope of devolution.
From the moment powers were devolved to a Scottish elected body, the inevitable result was going to independence. Rather than stretch out the pain let’s just give them what they want now and if what they want is this rather nasty, spiteful, anti-democratic SNP, so be it.
And jolly good luck to them. How about a Trump wall too? She’ll retire from service the minute they get independence in my opinion “My jobs done” she’ll say – wouldn’t want to hang around too long once all the s**t hits the fan
The fact that this nonsense from the SNP has not been covered in the MSN in great detail just goes to show how the MSN have been bought and sold over the past few years. Corrupt the lot of them – give a journalist a free drink and access to a politician and he will print anything you want.
Caught between the sheer evil of the SNP and the sheer incompetence of Westminster, what chance do we have?
Orkney and Shetland need to leave Scotland now! Places I know well, and not really Scottish, and if they leave and form either their own nation, or join with the Faroes and Fairisle they would be the fishing kings of the N Atlantic!
Hilarious!
We should definitely offer any region of Scotland the opportunity to maintain its place in the UK. Borders and some of the islands might well take it.
I believe Aberdeen, or one party in the city’s governing structure, would like to deal directly with London instead of the tyrants in Edinburgh.
God forbid. No sooner do you mention it to a an SNP sympathiser than you are hit with a lecture on the sanctity of maintaining the nation intact.
I think that would be fantastic. An independent North Atlantic Fishing Federation. And with the addition of players from Orkney and Shetland, they would beat the Scots (and possibly the English) at football every time.
That pencil simulation of Nicola Sturgeon almost makes her look human.
Why does she wear that appalling semi-mullet? It always makes her look exactly like a pencil standing upright.
The things you learn. Never knew they existed.