Tories privately welcoming division caused by English voting move Kate Devlin and Michael Settle. Herald. Saturday 4 October 2014 Conservative ministers have privately written off any chance of getting a deal to restrict Scottish MPs voting rights before the next general election - amid opposition from the Liberal Democrats as well as Labour. Senior Tory sources also indicated that they were happy that English votes for English laws would be a so-called wedge issue with other parties in 2015. The Tories and Labour have been at war over the move since it was announced two weeks ago. Peter Piper, Ayrshire • Back to Westminster shenanigans, where Scotlands interests come - nowhere. Euan Leckie, Argyll • Lets analyse the shenanigans going on here. Labour are trying to defend the indefensible. At least they are consistent and predictable though, Labour always does what it considers best for Labour, any other consideration comes a distant second. They simply dont want to lose the full power of their ovine Scottish MPs votes. That the present system is unfair and unjustifiable is of no interest to them. We should remember Labours answer to the West Lothian Question, which was famously - not to ask it. The Tories want EVEL (English Votes for English Laws), primarily to stuff Labour up, but also to appease the anti-Scottish backlash within their own ranks, to appease Ukip who are increasingly determining Tory policy and to appeal to their core (English) vote. The Lib Dems are squirming to try anything to avoid the hammer blow coming their way in May by attempting, desperately and hopelessly, to get PR introduced. I expect theyre also trying to ingratiate themselves with Labour too and may indeed be covertly working together with them on this. A bag of weasels fighting in a sack would be statesmen compared with this shower.. Euan Leckie, Argyll> Peter Piper, Ayrshire • As youll see from my post Peter, I agree with you, but what is your view on the general effect of EVEL? Mine is that, apart from EVEL being fair and just in its own right, any reduction in what Labour believes it can get out of Scotland is ultimately good. EVEL will achieve that and therefore should attract support from independence supporters. Labour in Scotland could be facing a political perfect storm. On one hand EVEL could remove their power to vote on many rUK issues. At the same time, new powers at Holyrood could increase the number of such issues (albeit I have serious doubts about how powerful these new powers will be). Finally, if we also manage to replace a good number of Labour MPs with SNP MPs in May, this could result in Labour perhaps being forced to start thinking about Scotland in a very different way?.
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 11:26:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015