Letter: improper alignment?

Some may recall the Law Society of Scotland’s intention recently to hold an Indyref2 discussion at a Society conference. The proposal was inevitably pulled in the teeth of outrage from various members of the Society, including this one, who took the view that it was quite improper for the Society to align itself with any political viewpoint or party.

Has it done the same thing again? The Society’s news release of 20 December 2016 [on the Scottish Government's paper Scotland's Place in Europe] comes very close to it. “The Scottish Government is to be commended for producing a thorough set of options which deserves proper consideration and analysis”. Or try: “the Scottish Government is also right to use this paper to set out how further devolution to the Scottish Parliament may be required”. Or again: “it is clear the Scottish Parliament may need increased devolved powers affecting justice and home affairs, environment law, farming and research”.

Apart altogether from the fawning tone, these are questionable value judgments that in my view the Law Society of Scotland should not be making.

To comment so warmly on the publication of Scotland’s Place in Europe is naïve. I appreciate that people have different views about independence, but this Government publication has been roundly rubbished, not only by other EU states, but even by some members of the SNP’s expert panel who have effectively declared the paper a non-starter.

As the journalist Iain Martin commented, the UK Government itself must for the sake of form and politeness pretend to take the SNP proposal seriously, but will see it for the wheeze it is.

The Society should, in my view, stay out of politics, where it appears accident prone. For the sake of completeness I would take exactly the same view had it offered comment rubbishing the Scottish Government’s paper.