English votes for English M.P.s?

Having just watched Harriet Harman voicing opposition to the possible Tory plan of excluding Scottish MPs from English only matters, I started wondering why Labour are so against it. It is, in some sense, a natural conclusion to devolution. Maybe conclusion is the wrong word, for a possible endpoint is independence for Scotland.

Is it possible that Labour can now foresee the break up of the United Kingdom? Devolution was supposed to stop the pressure for independence. But after two terms in office north of the border, the SNP are now in power and will try at every point to create friction with Westminster. It seems to be working in some respects, a new poll states that 33% of English people support independence for Scotland, maybe not the electorate the SNP were targeting but it will still help their cause.

Or is it possible that Labour can foresee that, as a Government, they will not be able to enact much of their legislation without co-operation from the English Grand Committee. Without the many Scottish Labour MPs, they may find it hard to have a majority in an English Grand Committee.

Either proposition is unattractive for Labour. They face an uphill struggle to gain a majority in a Scotland-less UK, or become an impotent domestic Government in a UK with a probably Tory dominated English only grand committee.

If I was Gordon Brown, I would persuade the Labour Scottish MSPs to vote for a referendum on Scottish independence. The outcome would, at present, likely be a No vote which would take independence off the agenda for thirty years or so. This would give me some breathing space to find some imaginative plan to fend of the English only plan for votes. Once this genie is out of the bottle it may be very hard to put it back in again!

Squiffy.