Devolutionist Daniel Johnson MSP is comfortably ignorant about Holyrood's powers

I wrote to my Labour In Name Only (LINO) MSP, Daniel Johnson, on March 5th asking him to support the petition PE2135 to implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) into Scots law:

Dear Daniel,

Below is a public post made on my blog, Dear Scotland, about the responses the grassroots movement Respect Scottish Sovereignty received from the Scottish Government and SPICe on petition PE2135, calling on the Scottish Government and MSPs to implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) into Scots law.

As the post makes crystal clear, the Scotland Act 1998 gives the Scottish Parliament the authority to enact international human rights agreements in full.

I would be grateful if you could confirm your support for the petition. If for some reason you are unable to do so, please provide me with a full explanation.

Thank you.

I received the following response on Monday, March 24th:

---

Dear Leah,

Thank you for your email.

I believe we come to a different conclusion about the powers the Scottish parliament has to enact or sign up to international agreements such as the ICCPR. The powers of the Scottish parliament flow from the Scotland Act 1998 and as such, the parliament is not sovereign and does not have that right. As a devolutionist, I am comfortable with that.

It was a UK Labour Government that created the Scottish Parliament and built human rights into its DNA, in terms of its enshrining of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the ECHR. However, it remains the UK secretary of state for Scotland who has ultimate responsibility for Scotland’s UN obligations. Your MP would therefore be the best person to contact. Fortunately, your MP is also the secretary of state for Scotland, Ian Murray MP, so he will be very well qualified to answer your questions.

Kind regards,

Daniel

---

First, I understand perfectly well that Holyrood is a devolved colonial administration and is and can never be sovereign in Scotland because sovereignty lies with the Scottish People. But I don’t expect devolutionist Daniel to acknowledge that.

Second, Daniel doesn’t seem to be able to comprehend that The Scotland Act 1998 expressly gives the Scottish Parliament the power to enact international human rights agreements into Scots law. It’s written in plain English in Schedule 5 of the Act:

Third, Daniel claims that human rights are built into the DNA of the Scottish Parliament, citing the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

However, the Human Rights lodestar is not the ECHR but the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). That’s because Direct Political rights were included in the UDHR in 1948 (Art 21), but were deliberately excluded from the ECHR when it was signed in 1950 (ratified by the UK in 1951). The UN included Direct political rights again when the ICCPR was signed in 1966 (ratified by the UK in 1976) (Article 25).

https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights

Fourth, the UN Human Rights watchdog in Scotland, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and the UN Human Rights Committee have both repeatedly recommended full ICCPR implementation - i.e., without any reference to devolution - most recently in their reports of 4^th February (Page 15, Art. 20) and 3^rd May (Page 2, Art. C 5(a)) 2024, respectively.

In its 4^th February 2024 report, the SHRC was clear:

“The Commission recommends that the UK, at every level of government, desists with all policy activities which restrict or undermine the level of protection for civil and political rights as set out in the present Covenant…” (Page 64 Annex A Part B)

Devolutionist Daniel punted the ball to the colonial Viceroy Ian Murray, who, Daniel tells me, I’m fortunate to have as my MP because he is “very well qualified” to answer my questions. Yeah, right.

Frankly, I didn’t expect a coherent response from English Labour in Scotland, just as I wouldn’t from the English Tories or LibDems in Scotland - all are happy being under the thumb of another nation.

The question is, what will be the response from the self-declared ‘party of independence?’ Will it step up for the People of Scotland or will it, too, be cowardly servile to Westminster?

https://petitions.parliament.scot/petitions/PE2135