According to the article , parliament reserves the right to legislate on devolved matters , but this would require more than that . It would require amending without the Scottish parliament ' s approval the Scotland Act which created the Scottish parliament in the first place . In terms of sovereignty and authority , there ' s no difference parliament can do whatever it feels like . However , it would cause an unholy row , but more important than that , there ' s thisThe majority of MPs do not want Brexit . They feel bound to vote for it because of the referendum , but they may very well not feel bound to strip the Scottish parliament of its current , possible authority to block Brexit by changing the act of devolution . So politically they can say , in the strictest of honesty , that they support the will of the British people while still letting the Scottish parliament respect the will of the Scottish people and derail the whole thing . The Scottish parliament would take the blame among Brexiteers and the acclaim among their own voters MPs won ' t have to face deselection because they can support Brexit to their hearts ' content knowing that it won ' t happen , and the majority of the public won ' t understand the nuances well enough to realise that their MPs could have pushed it through , but didn ' t . My question is this someone must have pointed this out to Theresa May . She must know that this is a risk in appealing the Brexit ruling to the supreme court . Is she hoping that the government will lose and Scotland will save the country from its collective madness without her having to take the blame ? Or is she really bloody minded enough that she is willing to risk this tree trunk being dropped on the railway line just so she can prove that she is right ?