The Scotification of the UK

Devolution of government is a good thing. I have long been an adherent to the "small is beautiful" philosophy of life. Government in this country has become too centralized and this is a large factor in explaining why nothing works.

However. . . .

But ...

There are some things states should not devolve - and foreign policy is most certainly at the top of that list. You could not conceive of a situation where the German Federal Government would allow Saxony to run its foreign policy nor would the US government cede its foreign policy to the government of North Dakota. What is our mindless goverenment up to.

If we allow the argument currently emanating from Downing Street that freeing the Lockerbie prisoner was entirely a matter for Scottish Justice (and I doubt whether anyone believes that) then we are in effect ceding foreign policy and international trade policy to a junior government in Edinburgh. Scotland may want to be a sovereign state but they are not there yet.

The whole affair should rouse the deepest cynicism in everyone. This has nothing to do with compassion or justice and everything to do with cutting a lucrative deal with the Libyan Government and at one level we can shrug our shoulders and be part of the real world. But once again we have Gordon Brown being too clever, too lacking in courage and too bound up in his own head to understand public concerns.

One suspect that Blair might have found a better way to finesse this one. The result may have been no different but he would not have created a situation where in trying to stick it to the SNP he would cede rights over foreign policy.