Referendums in Scotland

The implication ( which could be drawn from Rees-Mogg's Times article) that the reason the Leader signed up to the European constitutional Reform Treaty so avidly was that it retrieved powers devolved unwisely to the Scottish government and conceded them to the European Union subject to negotiation with the member-state - ie., the Westminster Labour regime - is attractive but for subsidiarity's fundamental role in the European Union's foundation.

The subsidiarity principle is reinforced under the Reform Treaty and regional parliaments with legislative powers have greater levels of direct consultation and action within the Council of the Regions and within the EU in general, together with reinforced direct access to EU information affecting their regions, rather than relying on being kept informed by member-state level governments perhaps jealous of devolved lost powers and prepared to seek to recover them by denial of information.

This does not alter necessarily the consideration that the governing party in Scotland must be giving to holding a referendum on accession to the Reform Treaty. Should Scotland choose to remain within the European Union and within a more highly devolved but continued United Kingdom federation, or within the EU but without the UK , or without both, (it cannot choose within the UK but without the EU, obviously), some means of expressing the electorate's wishes is needed.

A referendum on Scottish independence is mooted by 2010. While 2010 is too late for the Reform Treaty acceptance or rejection, it might be possible to bring forward the referendum on independence and organize at the same time (and more competently than Labour's Douglas Alexander's effort the last time more than one poll was conducted on the same ballot paper and on the same day in Scotland), a referendum of the Scottish electorate on accession to the Reform Treaty.

The member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath might be the recipient of a double whammy.