Chris Thomson (Barcelona, Scottish Constitutional Commission): As each day goes by, the constitutional relationship between Scotland and England becomes increasingly untenable. The time has come for a fundamental rethink about Scotland's constitutional future. The political process is inadequate and inappropriate for such a major rethink, partly because it tends to be self-serving and opportunistic, but also because it has not shown itself able to think constitutionally and strategically, which is precisely the kind of thinking that Scotland most needs at this point in her history. That is why we have established a Constitutional Commission for Scotland. There were compelling reasons for doing so.
First, we were recently taken to war against the wishes of the majority by a government that commands the support of only a minority of the electorate. The current Prime Minister's announcement that, in future, the decision to go to war will have to be approved by the UK Parliament seems like a step in the right direction until one remembers that the UK Parliament is not truly representative of opinion in the UK. Scotland could still end up being taken to war against her wishes. We need written constitutional safeguards to prevent it from ever happening again.
Second, there is growing support in England in favour of English votes for English matters. This will almost certainly happen. When it does, it will raise fundamental questions about the role of the UK Parliament because, once purely English business has been take away from it, it will not have much left to do. And that, in turn, will call the nature and future of the Union into serious question. Much better to plan for this eventuality, by looking afresh at the Constitution, than to wait until it is upon us and have to respond in crisis mode.
Third, Scotland and England are diverging in ways not anticipated by devolution. At one time it was thought that devolution would cater for the differences (e.g. free tuition fees, free care for the elderly, the treatment of young offenders etc.), but the Iraq war, Trident, immigration, and the UK Government's closeness to an extreme right-wing US Government suggests that the divergence runs much deeper and wider, into matters currently reserved to Westminster. This divergence is likely to increase and is unsustainable in the long run.
Fourth, the Power Inquiry Report highlighted just how much power has been take away from the people during the Blair years, by politicians and civil servants. And the early promise of a "participative democracy" in Scotland has not been fulfilled. There is an urgent need to debate the distribution and exercise of power in Scotland. It is increasingly clear that the formal political processes are no longer capable on their own of solving the many difficult issues of governance in a rapidly changing world. And there can be little doubt that there has been a widespread collapse of trust in politics and politicians. As Power reported, this is deep rooted and cannot be met by "tweaking the existing system, with a bit of new technology here, or a consultation there. The result is that no political space is being created for the new politics and new ideas to emerge. A new politics will only be born once the structural problems within the present system are addressed".
The Constitutional Commission could help to create that much needed new political space in Scotland, because it was set up specifically to give practical meaning to the distinctively Scottish principle of "sovereignty of the people" by helping the people of Scotland work out for themselves the relationships they wish to have with England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as the arrangements they would like put in place for their own governance here in Scotland. In short, Scotland needs a modern, written Constitution
Meanwhile, Scotland will almost certainly continue to become more autonomous, not so much because the people of Scotland want this to happen (although many do), but mainly because the current constitutional relationship between Scotland and England has become unsustainable and because England is belatedly waking up to this. More than anything, it will be events in England that drive Scottish independence.
