London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 14, 2025

'Morally repugnant': Sturgeon slams UK govt over Supreme Court challenge to bills passed in Scottish parliament

'Morally repugnant': Sturgeon slams UK govt over Supreme Court challenge to bills passed in Scottish parliament

The UK government has announced a remarkable Supreme Court challenge to two pieces of legislation passed by the Scottish parliament over concerns they may impinge on Westminster's governance.
MSPs unanimously approved the bills on children's rights and local government last month, but they will now not receive the royal assent needed to become law until after the legal challenge.

UK ministers are concerned the bills could force them to act, and that the legislation is outside the extent of Holyrood's devolved powers.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon branded the move "jaw-dropping" as she questioned why the Tory government is challenging laws in the Supreme Court that were passed unanimously.

"For what? To protect their ability to legislate/act in ways that breach children's rights in Scotland. Politically catastrophic, but also morally repugnant," the SNP leader said in a tweet on Monday.

The legislation incorporates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Charter of Local Self-Government, both of which are currently outside of Scottish law.

The UK government has used the powers it is afforded under the Scotland Act 1998, giving it the right to challenge bills passed in the devolved Scottish parliament during a four-week window.

The move is almost unprecedented, with only one other bill having been subject to a legal challenge in more than two decades of devolution.

That bill was a piece of legislation passed in 2018 about keeping EU laws after Brexit, which the court found to be generally sound, before it was superseded by other Westminster legislation.

UK PM Boris Johnson has also sparred with Sturgeon recently over the possibility of Scotland holding another referendum on its independence from the rest of the UK.

Scottish independence is a key part of Sturgeon's reelection campaign ahead of the May elections, but has been repeatedly resisted by Johnson. The PM only last month called devolution an SNP "obsession" and "the last thing" Scotland needs.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
×