by Rab Bruce’s Spider

The ruling from Scotland’s Court of session has highlighted some fascinating aspects of today’s UK.

First of all, the initial reaction from Downing Street, relayed from an unnamed source, was to claim that the decision was politically motivated and implied that Scottish judges could not be trusted to be impartial. Official statements later countered this, but of course the whole point of the unattributed comment was to cast doubt on the judgement. No matter how many times official claims of trust in the Court’s impartiality are made, the initial claim will have taken hold amongst those who want to ignore the ruling.

On that point, I’m sure we all know someone who will side with the howls of outrage from England about the Scottish Court exceeding its authority by daring to make a judgement which will impact on the wishes of the majority of people in England. The irony of that situation seems to be lost on those folk.

The main issue, though, is that the UK Supreme Court faces a no-win situation. If they overrule the Court of session’s decision, they are effectively saying that three senior Scottish judges don’t understand Scots Law properly. That’s only going to add to the growing sense of resentment in Scotland.

On the other hand, if they support the ruling, they are going to unleash what could be the greatest constitutional crisis since the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. That may sound like hyperbole, but forcing Westminster to obey a decision made in a Scottish Court is, as far as I am aware, unprecedented. We can expect an enormous backlash from the Tories and the Brexit Party who now represent what is effectively an English Nationalist Party.

The big question is how far that backlash will go. It would be nice to think that public opinion in England will be so vehement that Westminster decides to allow Scotland an opportunity to become a normal country. Personally, I don’t think they will do that willingly, but being forced to obey Scots Law may just be the final straw for them. Let’s hope so.