By Rab Bruce’s Spider

So the SNP are being blamed for defeating the Tory Bill which would amend Sunday Trading hours in England and Wales.

There is no doubt that, whatever excuses the SNP puts forward for voting against this, it has political repercussions in widening the divide between England and Scotland and in fostering the mutual antagonism between the two countries but there are a few points which I think it is worth making.

First of all, as far as I can gather, this Bill was not deemed to be English only under the EVEL measures the Tories brought in. If that is the case, it is either a blunder of huge proportions by the Tory Government or a tacit admission that there is indeed a knock on effect on Scottish workers’ rights. On which point, those SMP concerns could surely have been addressed by granting some sort of opt out to the Scottish Government but, of course, it is not Westminster policy to devolve power over workers’ rights. This gave the SNP the opportunity to claim a reason to vote on the matter and, let’s face it, if they are elected MPs, why should they not vote?

Secondly, we must not forget that 56 MPs cannot prevent the Tories pushing through any laws they like since they have an absolute majority. For this Bill to be defeated, Labour had to change their habit of abstaining on everything and actively oppose it – which they did because the Unions were very much against the proposal.

Even that would not have been enough, though. What tipped the balance was the 27 Tory MPs who voted against the measure on the grounds that Sunday was a traditional family day.

The headlines should therefore be more focused on the Tory rebels than the SNP but that, of course, is not how the media works in Scotland.

There is, though, one additional comment I’d like to make on this and it’s something others have mentioned online, and that is the attitude of the Tory rebels. These people must have very skewed moral values since they are quite prepared to vote down a Bill on Sunday Trading in order to preserve the sanctity of the Sabbath but they would not vote against measures which reduced ESA payments to disabled people by £30 per week. Maybe that’s one of those British Values we keep hearing about.