I said I would stop political blogging, but with the election tomorrow . . . .
Like you, I have no idea what's going to happen. There's been much talk about whether Labour, if it isn't the largest party, could form a coalition with the SNP. Ed Miliband has ruled out any "deals", but of course as an ex-lawyer I'd be wanting to know exactly what he meant by "deals". I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a minority Labour government dependent on support from the Nats.
Would this be legitimate? Of course it depends on what that means too. My inclination is no.
Look at it this way. During the last parliament the forty-odd Labour MPs from Scotland forced the Tories into coalition. Without them, at least as far as matters pertaining to England are concerned, the Tories could have governed alone. In that sense Scottish Labour MPs were decisive.
As far as the UK as a whole was concerned that was fine. Of course Scottish MPs should be influential on subjects like defence or taxation. But what about health and education? These are matters which are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Why should Scottish MPs have a say on what happens to education policy down here?
This situation, indefensible when Scottish MPs were merely forcing the Tories into Coalition, will become insupportable if Scottish MPs are helping a government pass legislation.
We will then be in the situation that Scottish voters are electing representatives to make decisions which will affect the English but which will not affect Scottish voters themselves. To put it another way, if the English don't like the decisions the Scottish MPs make, there is nothing they can do to eject them from office; and for the Scottish constituents there is no incentive to boot their MP out since decisions in which their MP participates won't affect them anyway.
To be clear, this has nothing to do with the flood of SNP MPs which is apparently coming. For me the fact that the SNP wants to break up the UK is not, as it is for some, reason for stopping them forming part of the government. It is a question of who those SNP members represent, their influence over people they don't represent, the lack of accountability to those people and the fact that their own constituents won't be affected by their decisions on crucial areas of English policy nor indeed have any incentive to remove them from office. That's fundamentally undemocratic.
Imagine if most English voters decide they don't like a Labour / SNP education bill and want to boot out the government. On this issue a good proportion of Labour's support, perhaps one fifth, would come from Scottish voters totally unaffected by the legislation. Voting those MPs out would be impossible for an English electorate.
No taxation without representation, goes the slogan. Here's another. No power without accountability.
Ah, I hear you say, but you've admitted yourself that Scottish MPs can properly speak on UK wide issues. You can't have two tier MPs, forming part of the government on UK wide matters but not on English ones.
Well I agree. And here - a place I very much regret starting from - we are at last with the West Lothian Question. Writ Large. It's a great shame Donald Dewar is dead. He was a decent man who brushed away Tam Dalyell's awkward questions and we are now likely to have the consequences fester across British politics for five years.
If Labour ends up trying to form a government with the SNP there will be trouble. It would be fundamentally unfair to the English for Ed Miliband to rule England with the help of MPs from Scotland. Unfortunately it would also be fundamentally unfair to the Scots for Ed Miliband to turn down the chance to govern the UK as a whole with the help of MPs from Scotland. Whichever path Miliband chose would be unfair. And whichever path he chose, Independence would be be more likely.
Donald Dewar thought devolution would settle the Independence question once and for all. How wrong he was.
