I wanted to find out a little bit about the political system in Scotland, especially when tasked with having a say in the country’s future on such a contentious issue. Feeling a little confused as to how the Scottish Parliament works alongside Westminster, I took a trip to the Scottish Parliament last week to find out more.

The Scottish Parliament is situated in the shadow of Arthur’s Seat at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. On the day I visited a meeting of the Parliament was being held in the debating chamber, where SNP cabinet members for the Environment and Justice were questioned by other parties about their portfolios. This included questions and debates on reducing carbon emissions in Glasgow, amendments to the crofting reform act, assisting farmers affected by the recent cold weather and whether the Government is planning to reduce the number of Police Officers in order to meet budget cuts. An interesting question was also put forward regarding safeguarding the bee population of Scotland, to which much to my delight many bee-puns were given in response, (e.g. “I knew you would sting me with that question…”). The experience was entirely different to my visit to Westminster in November – The House of Commons is about five times smaller than the Scottish debating chamber, with UK MPs decidedly more ruckus.

The Scotland Act of 1998 established the first Parliament in Scotland since 1707. This passed power from Westminster to Holyrood on a range of devolved matters including health, education, housing, justice, the environment, agriculture and the arts. However Westminster still retained powers to make laws for Scotland on certain issues. These issues generally have a UK-wide or international impact and are known as reserved matters. They include things like benefits, immigration, defence, foreign policy, employment, broadcasting, nuclear energy and the Constitution.

The Scottish Parliament is made up of 129 elected representatives, who are known as Members of Scottish Parliament (MSPs). The voting system used is a type of proportional representation known as the Additional Member System, which gives each voter two votes in an election. The first vote is the constituency vote, with the candidate winning the largest number of votes gaining the seat. The second vote is for a political party within a larger electoral area called a Scottish Parliament region. In each of the eight regions, parties are allocated seats depending on the number of votes they receive in the regional ballot, and taking into account the number of constituency seats they win in a region. Of the 129 MSPs, 73 are constituency representatives, while 56 represent the eight parliamentary regions. In the last election in 2011, the Scottish National Party won 69 seats – making it a majority government. Previous governments were a minority government or coalition.

Bills passed by the Scottish Parliament don’t have to be approved by the UK Parliament, however royal assent by The Queen must be given before they can come into force. In contrast the UK Parliament can pass laws that affect Scotland on devolved matters. By convention the UK Parliament would normally do this by seeking the consent of the Scottish Parliament through a legislative consent motion proposed by a MSP. It is possible for MSPs to become Members of the UK Parliament simultaneously (called a dual mandate), however the roles are entirely separate. There are 650 MPs in the House of Commons, 59 hailing from Scotland and representing Scotland on reserved matters.

During my afternoon in the debating chamber there was only one mention of the most hotly contested issue in Scotland at the moment – independence. The mention of this word by a SNP cabinet member made the debating chamber erupt into a fully fledged House-Of-Commons style debate, with MSPs from all parties crying out and waving papers and arms in the air when they disagreed. Scotland’s Parliament surely does have an interesting year and a half ahead if the little snippet on independence I saw is anything to go by.

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Late in the evening of the 26^th of March 1603 Robert Carey arrived exhausted, battered and bruised at the gates of the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the foot of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. With him he carried important news, news that would change everything: the Queen of England was dead. Sixty hours earlier he’d left Richmond Palace in London the moment Elizabeth I had expired, and now he was being taken by candlelight to see the King of Scots, James VI in his bedchamber. Without permission or authority from the English parliament, Carey announced to the king that he was being offered the throne of England. It was news that James had been waiting a lifetime to hear.

Not that it came to him as any surprise, for over the last three years or so Elizabeth’s chief councillor, the rather dyspeptic Robert Cecil, had been conducting informal negotiations with the Scottish king; and when it became clear that the old queen was on her last legs those discussions became more official. Indeed, so astute was Cecil that James’s succession was one of the smoothest in English history; no mean feat considering that the king of Scotland was about to wear the crown of St Edward. For centuries kings of England had attempted to make Scotland subordinate to their will; and in one of the great ironies of European history the tables had now been turned.

King James VI

James left Edinburgh on the 5^th of April, having pledged to his Scottish subjects that he would come back ever three years (a promise he failed to keep) and became the first Scottish monarch in nearly a hundred years to cross the River Tweed and enter England. It took over a month for the travelling show to wind its way to London, and everywhere cheering crowds greeted their new king all along the Great North Road, culminating in a stupendous fanfare as he entered the capital on the 7^th of May. Edward I, Hammer of the Scots, must have been spinning in his grave.

James was crowed in Westminster Abbey in July 1603, sitting on the ancient Stone of Destiny, wearing the Crown of England and amid the great and grand of the English aristocracy. To them he was now James I of England; but the new monarch had grander ideas. He once told his parliament, that he now “ruled Scotland from London with a pen, which English kings had never managed with the sword”; a backhanded complement to his Stewart ancestors and his native land, but showing firmly that one king ruled both nations. From the very start he called the new joint-monarchy ‘Magna Britannia‘, or Great Britain: resurrecting an old Roman term for a modern Caesar.

Above all James wanted to unite his kingdoms, it was almost an obsession, and this didn’t go down too well with his English ministers and parliament. Every step towards British-ness was a step away from English-ness; although north of the border the Scots were still basking in the fact that they’d just given England a king and didn’t really care as much. He also didn’t really understand the English system, its laws or customs, so he brought south a Scottish court and surrounded himself with the familiarity. This caused serious tensions, and played a huge part in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Still, undaunted and with a cunning wilfulness his programme of integration, at least in symbolism, continued.

James VI was the son of the stunningly beautiful Mary Queen of Scots and her equally handsome husband Lord Darnley; yet he turned out to be a rather strange looking character. He had a pronounced limp, odd stature and a tongue too large for his mouth which meant he tended to slaver like a simpleton. All this was combined with a raft of personality disorders, all stemming from a childhood that at best could be described as traumatic. However, James was no simpleton; he was well educated, sharp and political expedient – every thing he said or did was done in calculation of his own conceit as a divine king. In Europe he was half-mockingly called the ‘Wisest Fool in Christendom’. He may have looked and sounded like a half-wit, but his brain was razor-sharp; and his English ministers never really grasped that.

The king was passionate about heraldry and symbolism, and he saw this as an effective way to smooth the path to genuine union. His first move was to create a personal heraldic badge: a motif combining the rose of England with the thistle of Scotland. He then changed the Royal Standard, merging elements from both the English and Scottish coats of arms – although Scotland would, and retains a separate royal standard where the Scottish lion rampant takes precedence over the English ‘three lions’ emblem). As independent nations though both Scotland and England retained their own national flags; but here too James decided that his two realms should have one; and it remains his greatest contribution to the symbolic life of the nation.

According to the king there was contentions at various ports in Scotland allowing English ships to enter, and vice versa; a cover story for sure, but one that allowed James to realise an ambition: a national flag. He asked the Privy Council to come up with a flag that ships and navies from both countries could fly and several options came back to his desk for approval. Now considering that his English ministers saw Scotland as little more than appendage, their designs reflected it: with the St Andrew’s Cross reduced to little more than an afterthought against their Cross of St George. James was having none of it, and commissioned a flag that displayed both ensigns with parity, and the result was the red-white cross of England emblazoned against a backdrop of the white-blue cross of Scotland. And so on the 16^th of April 1606 the new Union Flag was born.

A very English candidate for the Union Flag

With such a Scottish influence over their coveted flag the English parliament and army refused to adopt it; but with direct authority over the navy the new flag was made compulsory. A flag flown at sea is smaller than one flown on land and is known as a ‘jack’. Thus, for the first hundred years of its existence it was known as the Union Jack, a name that has kinda stuck. Also, James was Christened by his French-speaking mother as Jacque (the French for James), and behind his back he was snidely called ‘Union Jacque’. This play on words sealed the name in our national psyche, and few today realise that it is properly the ‘Union Flag’, not ‘Union Jack’.

James VI died in 1625, but his dream of union didn’t; and it took over a hundred years of civil war, fiscal disparity and ultimately bullying tactics to take Scotland into political union with England. With the Act of Union in 1707 James’ flag was adopted as the British national flag as England and Scotland ceased to be independent nations. By this time colonial ambitions were taking the flag to the farthest corners of the globe; and in time it would flutter across a quarter of the world. In 1801 Ireland was united with Great Britain (thus adding the red X cross of St Patrick to the flag) to create the United Kingdom and the standard we know to day was complete.

The British Empire is long dead, but the Union Flag is still an important part of the flags of many Commonwealth nations, such as Australia and New Zealand and most Canadian States (it’s even in the flag of Hawaii). It remains an integral part of the colourful pageantry and pride in our country; a reminder that our United Kingdom is exactly that. Scottish James would be very happy. 

The Union Flag

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Sovereignty in the United Kingdom is expressed as the ‘Crown in Parliament’, and that parliament is composed of a lower and upper house. The lower house, the House of Commons is a chamber of 650 members; each of whom are directly elected and represent a particular region, or constituency in the country. These Members of Parliament, or MPs, almost exclusively belong to one of the major political parties and will vote in the chamber according to the collective wish of that party.

The Houses of Parliament

Members of the upper chamber, or House of Lords are not elected, but fall into several categories: the Law Lords (lords of appeal in the supreme court upon their retirement as judges), the Lords Spiritual (senior bishops of the Church of England), Hereditary Peers (lords entitled to sit on the virtue of their inherited titles), and Life Peers (people appointed to the House as lords for the duration of their lifetimes, and who cannot pass on the title or right to their children). By far, the majority are Life Peers, and they represent a broad church of opinion and expertise: from captains of industry and scientists to seasoned politicians and cultural gurus. The Lords debate, scrutinise, and vote on legislation that has already been passed by the Commons. With less parliamentary pressure on their time, and without the threat of losing elections the lords are free to study the detail of prospective legislation in a way the lower house can’t. If they agree the Bill is sound then they pass it to Her Majesty the Queen for the Royal Ascent and it becomes law.

The Queen actually has a veto, but as all legislation going through Parliament has been initiated or approved by the Government, the monarch cannot be seen to disagree. The last time the veto was used was in 1708. The House of Lords does not have a veto. It used to, but a conflict with the Commons in 1911 saw it stripped of the privilege – by then it was seen as unconstitutional that an unelected chamber could thwart the policies and ambitions of a government elected on a manifesto of such policies. However, the Lords as part of their scrutiny can delay a bill, by sending it back to the Commons with amendments. It can do this three times before Royal Ascent will be given regardless of their objections.

As the Commons has all the real power, and its members are directly accountable to the British people, it has been the convention that the Prime Minister and the principal office holders are members of that house; although it is not uncommon to have senior ministers sitting in the Lords, due to their experience and rank within the party. The last Prime Minister to actually govern from the unelected chamber was Robert Cecil, 3^rd Marquess of Salisbury in 1902.

The office of Prime Minster, or more correctly First Lord of the Treasury, has developed over 300 years and today they wield more personal political power than most heads of government – certainly more than the US President. The reason being is that technically the PM is appointed by the Queen and as such exercises authorities and prerogatives in her name (the Crown). The monarch will chose the leader of whichever party can command a majority in the House of Commons – as this almost guarantees that the programme of legislation will progress. If a government fails to win support for its programme or its budget it has no option but to resign.

In reality, it is part of the smoke and mirrors pageantry of the system, but it evolved to be so. Parliament also sits by the Queen’s Grace and can be dissolved at her will at any time (although by law it cannot sit for more than five years before an election must be called). The Prime Minister can ‘ask’ the Queen to exercise her rights, and she will normally comply. Thus, the incumbent PM has a distinctive advantage in so far as he knows when an election will be held.

In 1963 the incumbent PM, Harold MacMillan, was gravely ill – indeed he thought he was close to death (in fact he’d live for another 23 years); so, he decided he would resign from the position. The problem was that the Conservative party at the time had no mechanism to appoint a new leader. Instead, party grandees, Churchill included, would ‘advise’ the Queen who to call as the new PM. Two main candidates emerged – Rab Butler, the Deputy Prime Minister; or Alec Douglas-Home, Earl of Home, who was Foreign Secretary. Butler was popular with the party, but most senior ministers refused to serve under him, Lord Home was the elder statesman, but an unelected and hereditary member of the House of Lords. The Queen came to visit MacMillan on what he presumed was his deathbed, and he advised she call upon Home to form a government – advice she didn’t have to take legally. However, she accepted the choice of the party bigwigs and unprecedented wheels were set in motion.

While his father held the title of earl, Alec Douglas-Home was able to sit in the Commons as an elected MP; and served as the Scottish Unionist (Conservative) member for Lanark from 1931 to 1945, and then again from 1950 to 51. He rose quickly through the ranks gaining ministerial experience under Chamberlin and Churchill. In 1951 his father died and he succeeded to the Scottish title: Earl of Home. He continued to serve both Anthony Eden and Harold MacMillan in various senior cabinet positions, until that fateful day when Buckingham Palace came calling.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minster

Lord Home then went to the Palace where the Queen gave him 24 hours to decide whether he could form a government; which he determined he could. Douglas-Home felt it was impracticable for a Prime Minister to govern from the Lords, and so using a new piece of legislation, the 1963 Peerages Act, he disclaimed and surrendered his titles. He had been made a Knight of the Thistle, which didn’t affect the constitution, and thus became ‘Sir Alec Douglas-Home’. As a commoner he was now free to seek election to the House of Commons. However, there were no available seats, and no elections on the immediate horizon. Britain therefore experienced a very unusual situation – a Prime Minister who sat in neither House of Parliament.

The safest Conservative seat in the UK was Kinross and West Perthshire, and the incumbent MP resigned, forcing a by-election for the constituency and Douglas-Home won by a massive landslide. He was now free to enter the Commons and govern. His tenure was short however. In the 1964 General Election the Tories lost to the Labour Party led by Harold Wilson. Sir Alec remained the leader of the opposition until July of 1965, during which time he revised the rules governing the election of the Conservative leader. Never again would the monarch have to choose, nor was it ever likely that a member of the Lords would be appointed. He was replaced by Edward Heath, who won the party ballot.

Douglas-Home remained an MP until 1974, during which time Edward Heath returned him to the post of Foreign Secretary. Upon his retirement he was bestowed with a Life Peerage and returned once again to the Lords as Baron Home of the Hirsel. He died at the age of 92 in 1995. He was succeeded by his son, the 15^th Earl of Home; one of the remaining hereditary peers in the Lords today.

It is a constitutional anomaly that is unlikely now ever to be repeated, but it goes to show first the convention, anachronism and tradition of our system on one hand, and the flexibility to deal with such crisis when they arise on the other. The Strange Case of Sir Alec Douglas-Home serves to remind us of how incredible our democracy really is.

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