Ian Blackford: 'Power grab' row will haunt the Conservatives in Scotland like the Poll Tax
2 min read
The row over what happens to powers returning to the UK from Brussels after Brexit will "haunt the Tories like the Poll Tax", Ian Blackford has claimed.
The SNP's leader at Westminster spoke out ahead of an emergency House of Commons debate on what his party has dubbed a "power grab" by Westminster.
The vast majority of the 100-plus powers returning from Brussels will come under the jurisdiction of the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly.
But more than 20 of them will temporarily be administered by UK Westminsters - sparking fury from the Scottish Nationalists.
Mr Blalckford has last week thrown out of the Commons chamber by Speaker John Bercow after Parliament took just 15 minutes to debate how the EU Withdrawal Bill will impact on the devolution settlement. Every other SNP MP then staged a walkout in protest.
The Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP has called on the Government to bring in a new law to break the impasse.
He said: "Scotland will not accept or forget the Tory government’s smash and grab raid on the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament – it will haunt the Tories for a generation just as the Poll Tax did.
"The Prime Minister has a personal responsibility to bring forward emergency legislation to end the power grab, resolve this constitutional crisis, and rectify the severe breakdown in trust that the UK government has caused by ignoring the will of the Scottish Parliament.
"The UK government’s behaviour is unprecedented, undemocratic, and completely unacceptable – breaking the UK’s constitutional conventions, and ripping up Scotland’s devolution settlement.
"There will be no business as usual until this attack on devolution ends. Scotland will not be silenced, and the SNP will do everything in our power to defend devolution and protect Scotland’s interests."
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