Atu XVIII - UK Politics and Civil Liberties Blog

SNP Beat Labour in Scotland

The BBC have just announced that the SNP have won the Scottish election with 47 seats to Labour's 46. Now that's close.

Of course that doesn't mean the SNP will form a government. No party has a majority, there will have to be a coalition. The Lib-Dems are kingmakers.

In theory the Lib-Dems could ally with Labour and keep the old coalition running. That would be a government with no moral authority. I really, really hope that the Lib-Dems and the SNP can settle their differences and agree to a coalition.

Then we would have the dream scenario - a Scottish government comprising two parties both opposed to the imposition of compulsory ID Cards.

Scotland Scottish elections SNP UK politics ukpolitics

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Comments:

Dave. said:
A genuine question: does Holyrood currently have any authority on the subject of ID cards?

# posted by

Dave. : 7:50 PM

Trevor said:
ID Cards and the National Identity Register are being imposed under the guise of immigration control - a reserved issue over which Holyrood has no authority. So no, Holyrood can't prevent the imposition of ID Cards and the NIR.

BUT

Holyrood can decide whether or not to require the use of ID Cards for access to devolved services and whether or not to recognise them as an alternative to existing ID (eg free bus passes). Holyrood can also decide to what extent devolved services and institutions choose to use the NIR. There are also grey areas such as some "designated documents" - eg whether Holyrood could choose not to link ID cards with Scottish driving licences (opinions differ).

So if Holyrood passes a motion vowing to cooperate with the Identity Card Act 2006 only to the absolute minimum required by law then it would save us from a lot of intrusion and seriously undermine the whole system.

# posted by

Trevor : 8:23 PM