Restoration

In 1999 the British government was unwise enough to open Pandora's box. New Labour's Leader and British Prime Minister Blair answered the serious misgivings of politicians and many with far better constitutional and historical understanding than he, with the assurance that there was no need for concern, the Scottish Parliament had no more powers than a parish council. Other, more prescient, words, uttered when Ewing was sworn in as the first Member of the Scottish Parliament for 292 years, 'prompted loud applause from colleagues and political opponents alike.'

"The Scottish Parliament, adjourned on the 25th of March 1707 is hereby reconvened."

The Treaties of Union came into effect on 1 May 1707, having been ratified first by the Scottish Parliament and then by the English Parliament, and the British Parliament met for the first time on 23 October. The Scottish representation was forty-five MPs and sixteen representative peers.

'After the ratifying act, the Scottish Parliament passed legislation concerning the representation of Scotland in the Parliament at Westminster. This Act was also made part of the Treaty. They decided to elect members of the first Parliament of Great Britain from the membership of the Scottish Parliament, avoiding an election during which Scotland's small electorate would probably express strong dislike of the Union.'

Both the Scottish and the English Parliaments were subsumed into the Parliament of Great Britain, (later Ireland was to be added, in the Parliament of the United Kingdom) but, beneath the constitutional surface, the three parliaments, of England Scotland and Ireland rested, and two have now risen again after centuries of quiescence. Only the English Parliament has not, because of its identity of interest and power with that of United Kingdom Parliament. That identity of interest is gone. The need for the English Parliament is argued widely.

It is patently untrue that the Scottish Parliament has only the powers of a parish council. The British Parliament may have listed areas of reserved powers, and the Scottish representation, as servile in its New Labour guise as ever it was centuries ago, may have voted as told; but no parliament can bind its successors, and history is not so much littered with, as made up of, the rejection of imposed and unjust treaties.

The Scottish Parliament is just that, as unbound by its predecessors or their capitulations as is the Irish Parliament, although it has not yet asserted or availed itself of all its powers. This is in part because the Scottish government is consulting the Scottish people on their wishes, (unlike their predecessors so long ago), as they were elected to do.

England's Parliament too must be restored and a new federation of the British Isles worked out before we are reduced to being provinces of northern France and Denmark.