THERE has never been any shortage of rhetoric around the EU Withdrawal Bill. The UK Government used to call it the Great Repeal Bill, the suggestion being that the legislation, which will ensure EU law no longer applies in the UK, represents a revolution, an unshackling of the chains – a great act of freedom.

The Scottish Government on the other hand takes a different view and has not gone easy on the rhetoric either. The Withdrawal Bill, it says, is a direct threat to devolution and represents the biggest power grab Scotland’s Parliament has faced since it was established in 1999. Those are the two interpretations: the EU Withdrawal Bill is an act of freedom or a direct threat to it.

On the face of it, the two positions look incompatible and are due to come to a head in the Commons today. Amendments seeking to change the bill’s impact on devolution will be proposed and debated, with Mike Russell, Scotland’s Brexit Secretary, saying the Scottish Government cannot accept the bill as it stands. Mr Russell says the bill will undermine devolution by transferring all powers exercised at EU level, including those in devolved areas such as farming and the environment, to Westminster. The Scottish Government’s view is that those powers belong at Holyrood.

However, there is a certain logic to the bill as it stands - the member state leaving the EU is the UK, not Scotland, which means that the UK would be the first port of call for any powers returning from Brussels. Behind the rhetoric, there is also a fair measure of agreement between the two sides: both the UK and Scottish Governments agree that some of the returning powers should be exercised UK-wide to maintain the UK internal market.

Talks on agreeing the framework and how it will work have also been ongoing since the summer and the hope must be that realism and compromise will still lead to a successful outcome. In private, both sides appear to be willing to get on with things and there is a precedent for progress: the SNP and the Conservatives managed to haggle their way through the Smith Commission on greater devolution; they must now do the same with the EU Withdrawal Bill.

Regardless of how that is achieved, the aim of the finished bill must be that, the day after Brexit, the powers in devolved areas are back with the Scottish Parliament and there is an agreement from both sides on where sharing with the UK Government is required.

In private, even if the Withdrawal Bill is passed in its current form and the SNP votes against it, both sides recognise that agreement must, in the end, be reached, even though in public, the Scottish Government is threatening to bring about a new constitutional crisis by rejecting the bill.

It might look like the two Governments are drawing lines in the sand, but they are really drawing temporary positions. The private talks must provide a route through the public mess and fury.