Cameron's Claim of Right act

There seem to be a lot of referendums around at the moment.

David Cameron this week announced he would hold a referendum on anything that moves in Europe, Ben Bradshaw believes not having a referendum on electoral reform would be a "missed opportunity" and there have been a few referendums on gay marriage in the USA (with an unfortunate but wholly expected result in Maine).

But it is the promise of never-endums on Europe and the Conservatives' general stance on the EU that I think deserves a closer look, particularly from a Scottish angle.

The Tory leader's decision not to hold a referendum on the wider question of the UK's relationship with the EU has horrified some members of his party with Dan Hannan mercifully exiting the scene (stage right, of course). Bizarrely, the lack of a referendum has encouraged Labour politicians to criticise the stance taken by Cameron.

Miliband's quote from yesterday (shown below) was eyebrow-raisingly childish for a man aiming to hold the prestigious office of 'High Representative' within the EU, not to mention hypocritical given his party's shocking U-Turn on an EU Referendum despite their 2005 manifesto commitment:

"British people now know what to expect when they hear a cast-iron guarantee from David Cameron on Europe: nothing.

"This is not about taking back powers from Europe; it is about transferring power to the Eurosceptics on his backbenches."

A bit petty I reckon, certainly from the Richard Baker book of political retorts rather than the reasoned, intelligent synopsis of one of our country's greatest minds, which a Foreign Secretary should ideally be.

In terms of what Cameron will do, I suspect the Sovereignty Bill will ultimately be as successful as the USA's much-maligned Patriot Act. Similarly knee-jerk, similarly over-reaching and similarly needlessly meddlesome.

The Tories are going to protect Britain's constitution from European influence seemingly irrespective of one tiny, insignificant detail - We don't actually have a constitution.

With this proposed Bill, there are unavoidable constitutional questions to be raised. How will the Scottish people (a relatively strong pro-EU bloc as poll after poll has shown) feel about a Tory Government with only a few MPs from Scotland bringing in a Sovereignty Bill that includes Scotland and makes us second class in Europe? On the outside looking in once again?

We should be driving the agenda in Europe not, as Eddie Izzard amusingly puts it, cleaning the windows. The British great and the good have this superior mindset where they think that if we don't get Blair in as EU President then we should at least get Miliband as High Representative, as a consolation prize. We used to rule the world don't you know.

We can't sit outside the Eurozone, have a ruling party in a mad, fringe, right-wing Parliament grouping and expect the EU to take us seriously. The current EU President, Sweden's Fredrik Reinfeldt, said: "I hope he (Cameron) will feel comfortable in working with other European leaders. He will need us. To address this issue he needs European leadership, not only British leadership." but it's patently not the case.

Cameron is distinctly uneasy about working with European leaders. You can barely fit a rizla between Reinfeldt and Cameron on domestic and foreign policy and yet their parties sit in separate European groupings, to the Tories' detriment. Such misguided logic regarding the EU is what we have to expect for perhaps a generation to come.

European solitude is the future we are headed towards under a Tory Government and Cameron's Sovereignty Bill will rubberstamp our pariah status within the EU.

Furthermore, if this Bill will ensure the primacy of Westminster, will there be an impact on Holyrood? It is necessary for the Scottish Parliament to be answerable to Westminster, that is the nature of devolution after all, but there is an opportunity here for Cameron to belittle the Scottish Parliament by artificially inflating the prestige of Westminster.

So what if the Scottish Government were to introduce its own variation of a Sovereignty Bill? Yes, a non-sovereign nation bringing in a sovereignty bill.

Crazy? Perhaps, but the State of Oklahoma has brought in exactly that, a Sovereignty Bill to fend off the unwanted reach of the Federal Government.

So what if the Scottish Government was to introduce a 'Claim of Right Bill', confirming that the Scottish Parliament would always consider the interests of the Scottish people "paramount". How could all 129 MSPs not sign up to such a notion? Gordon Brown has already signed up to it in 1989.

Wording of the Claim of Right includes:

We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.

It would of course be a political ploy from the SNP to raise 'the sovereign right of the Scottish people' while Cameron is defending the 'UK rights of UK people'. But what a ploy. Nationalists would be seeking to exacerbate the West Lothian question, faint anti-Scottish grievance down south and also crucially make Scots think about how they want to be represented, at home and abroad, and by whom.

David Cameron passing a Sovereignty Bill when he does not have a satisfactory mandate to govern Scotland and is opposed by a Scottish Government that has a very different idea of how sovereignty should be will make for a very interesting scenario indeed.