It is over three hundred years since Royal Assent has been denied in the UK, and that as it happens was a Scottish issue. It has been denied since then, though not in the UK, the consequences of which these three nations and the rest of the world live to this day. This is the story of knowing when to pick a fight that you cannot lose in order to win a fight that you cannot win. It will not amuse everyone, and if you are offended, please accept my apologies. No offence is intended, but it can easily be taken, but you are free not to read on, so remember, if you have been offended it is merely because your own eyes have drawn you on in this most charming of encounters.
It happened in private of course but the conversation was along these lines, being translated for yours faithfully for the most part into English from the original Scots, except where English English simply fails to have any equivalent expression:
FM: We are all perfectly aware that England is going to object to our decolonisation proposals so we shall have to be bold. We have had one referendum, but as they have moved the goal posts against the wishes of the Scottish people we can and must propose to hold another.
MSP1: They won’t let us do that.
FM: We shall have one nevertheless.
MsP2: They shall send the matter to the courts which will not go well for us.
FM: Let them try.
Months later
MSP1: It is just as we warned FM. The Supreme Court has ruled that to legislate for a further referendum be outwith our powers; if only we still had the Lords. Now Lord Denning, he would have been cavalier enough to have supported us.
FM: We have other options. Our resources are not exhausted.
MSP2: Are you suggesting a general election? We’ll be out as quick as a dram in the bishop’s tulip.
MSP1: No, she means we’ll pick a fight with Westminster that we cannot lose.
MSP3: Precisely, the gender reform bill: just look at the opposition to it, but we know who wants it and what big mouths they have. Even though we all know that it goes too far, we can push it through here.
MSP2: Westminster won’t like that, it runs roughshod over too much of their equality legislation. It will not get Royal Assent. They’ll block it.
FM: Precisely! Then we can accuse them of using gender as a political weapon insinuating that this is the first of many ways in which they will emasculate the sovereignty of our Parliament.
MSP2: That way public opinion will be on our side. We won’t need to say much, the big mouths will not need our help to show that the English cannot overrule the Scots Parliament.
MSP1: So they will back down on gender reform?
MSP2: No, don’t you see? She’s a cannier lass than that.
FM: We compromise on equality and get a referendum.
MSP (from the backbench): but eerhm, gender, political weapons, if I may ask, isn’t that what you have just….[garbled noises emanating as from one recently subject to an uninvited attack on his person. ]
Ah, the perils of these so-called modern (post-modern) days. Do the right thing and you shall be pilloried. Do the wrong thing and what happens? You shall be pilloried. Well, if pilloried either way…
Finally, at last you say, I do wonder how we could ever be post-modern, for if modern is à la mode, today, the post-modern must be tomorrow, and we are never in tomorrow it is always just around the corner waiting for us, but I guess that in this modern post-modern world where words mean whatever Tweedeldee and Tweedeldum want them to mean we just have to accept it for what it is not. Which reminds me, a friend today remarked on an email into which I had copied him, to say that the recipient and the sender appeared to be one and the same. Oh no, I clarified for him, they were two entirely different legal persons, who simply happened to occupy the same body. The correct pronouns, articles etc are they and its derivatives. Forget ye not.
Well, the playwright’s words were untrue, but no more so than The Crown or any of old Bill’s royal scripts. The wise man spoke truly when he said: A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.
Whilst the good go about their business in peace, the workers of iniquity, as anticipated, conduct theirs with impunity, and direct their venom against all who would even hint any opposition. They have not known the way of peace. And so, the lot was cast and though their fury was raised up, a turn of events changed the course of their ire and a government which refused to apologise fell.
Proverbs 16:8-10
A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps
2 Corinthians 13:10-12
Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Deuteronomy 32:32-34
For their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah;
Their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter.
Their wine is the poison of serpents, and the cruel venom of cobras.
Romans 3:10-18
As it is written:
There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.
Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit;
The poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways;
And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Proverbs 16:33
The lot is cast into the lap,
But its every decision is from the Lord.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-64501436
he has made a mockery out of [the government by] using [this excuse]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64650704
the brutality of modern politics takes its toll
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-64452384
Nicola Sturgeon has said her government has nothing for which to apologise
Coco was incorrect. It now appears that the constitutional crisis would be triggered not by a moral issue but by a piece of, possibly now broken, glass. The dispute over whether a ‘modern’ recycling scheme should be introduced to replace the very effective other ‘modern’ scheme by which many a school boy or school girl supplemented their meagre allowances, by the collection and return of glass bottles, which was abandoned in living memory, possibly, Coco suggests cynically for the reason of the very good that it was doing, which would include the recycling of glass as well as the scourging plastics which so dominate our ephemeral existence.
It had been claimed that the higher power had raised unexpectedly an objection to their schemes, but now it emerges that the conflict was three years in the planning. The warnings that were provided that such a scheme would cause a dispute were, rather than being heeded, welcomed by a power which though it owed a duty of fealty to the higher power, longed for a conflict to arise by which it may assert its independence, whilst conveniently forgetting that the authority which they hold was conferred upon them by the higher power which still consisted of, in part at least, the Scottish parliament of which it wished to pretend to be the successor.
So Coco, the correct claim but the incorrect subject matter. So let the lesson be learned, if you are going to be disobedient, then find a trivial matter in which to be so first. As the Irish law student, who knowing that a criminal conviction would be the end of his career, but still wanting to break the law, found a quiet cul-de-sac and instead of crossing the road walked down to the end of it in the middle of the road. Nobody noticed, nobody cared, but the law was enraged. The gardai continued to wait for the arrival of morn.