Make no mistake, the Tories are trying to undermine Scottish democracy – Angus Robertson

Attacks on Scottish devolution have been occurring for some time. UK ministers have been trying a growing range of ways to undermine Scottish democracy.

Instead of respecting decisions the Scottish Parliament has been elected to take, Westminster politicians are overriding Holyrood as never before. Take for example the Sewel Convention, which is supposed to mean that the UK Parliament doesn’t override the Scottish Parliament without a legislative consent motion. It is now routinely ignored.

In recent months, we have seen the UK Government block Scottish legislation which had a large cross-party majority and rendered another policy proposal impossible to implement by delaying technical timescales. Recently, we have seen the UK Government seek to restrict the international promotion of devolved policy and relations, which of course follows the democracy denial which is blocking people from having a say on the country’s future, despite the public having elected a Holyrood majority to do just that.

What the Scottish Tories have been unprepared to say in public has been blurted out by Lord Frost, who until recently was the UK Brexit negotiator. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said: “Not only must no more powers be devolved to Scotland, it’s time to reverse the process… ministers should make clear that, if re-elected, they will review and roll back some currently devolved powers.”

He has now been joined by the Űber-Unionist commentator Stephen Daisley, who has written about Lord Frost’s proposals saying they are “a long overdue dose of common sense”. Despite Tory protestations to the contrary, we have all been warned: as the party that opposed devolution, they are now intent on undermining Scottish democracy and Scottish decision-making.

Angus Robertson is the SNP MSP for Edinburgh Central and Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Secretary