Meeting of the Parliament 26 May 2016
It is a pleasure and an honour to speak after Ross Greer’s first speech. I am not the oldest member—fortuitously—but all older members will be stretched and tested by the changed nature of this chamber. I say to Ross Greer that, 40 years ago, at almost exactly his age, I voted in the first European referendum, and I rebelled against my party: I voted yes when the SNP leadership voted no. I am relieved to be more in tune with the main stream of my party now, after 40 years, as I whole-heartedly support the remain campaign.
Nevertheless, there was consistency in my and the SNP’s inconsistency. The decision to recommend a no vote in 1975 was based on an assertion of Scottish sovereignty, which in that case refused to accept terms negotiated by a UK Government without reference to Scotland. Among those terms was the abandonment of the Scottish fishing industry, which was seen as expendable. Communities that I represent have paid a price for that every single year since.
Once again, the SNP is asserting our sovereignty, this time by making a positive case for Europe that is rooted in our desire to be an independent member, as befits an ancient nation. We assert our sovereignty not only by making that case but by refusing to be dragged out on the coattails of an increasingly raucous and isolationist campaign against membership. Our case is rooted in Scotland's positive, pro-European history: joint citizenship with France in the 16th century; the attendance of Scottish students at universities across the continent, something that I was very pleased to encourage when I was education secretary; and, even earlier, an appeal for nationhood that was made and heeded in Rome.
Our attitude is also rooted in the present, in the work of people such as the former member of this Parliament, Madame Ecosse—Scotland’s longest-serving MEP and a passionate advocate of the European Union. Her belief in Europe was born out of her circumstances as a woman born in 1929, only a decade after the end of a world war that had its origins on the continent. Living through another war as a young woman, she knew that a legally based, inclusive, irreversible collaborative structure was the thing that would guarantee peace in Europe; it was essential. It was as essential to her as it was to my father, who carried shrapnel in his leg from the beach at Dunkirk. That is not an aspect of Europe to be sneered at or ignored; it has saved lives, has stopped lives and families being ruined and has saved humans from suffering, too. The underpinning principles of European collaboration are designed to protect the rights of citizens fundamentally from the attack upon them that was genocide. I find it astonishing that anybody could argue to remove the European convention on human rights, given its origins. [Applause.]
The European Union is not like the union that we live in on this island—an incorporating union. We cannot express our sovereignty within this union, because it has been removed. Indeed, our very view of sovereignty lying with the people, not in the Parliament, has been usurped. However, in the EU, sovereignty is freely pooled for shared advantage and there is participation, as equals, in decision making. That is the type of union that benefits independent states and all those who live in them.
The EU also invites others to share in and benefit from its existence. Although Winnie Ewing is mostly remembered in the Highlands and Islands for speaking up for the area and for introducing objective 1 assistance that resulted in a great boost to the infrastructure, it is her achievement in securing the hosting of the Lomé convention in Inverness in 1985 that is best remembered outwith Europe. She believed—I know that she still believes—that encouraging other states to recognise that Scotland still aspires to full statehood and wants to enter into the family of nations positively enhances our prospects and success as a nation. She famously wanted, in her slogan from her Hamilton by-election in 1967, to “stop the world” because “Scotland wants to get on.”
We still want to get on. We need to aspire to be co-decision makers, and it is Europe that provides the context for that; indeed, there can be no other relevant context, as Jim Sillars eloquently showed a generation ago with his enthusiasm for independence in Europe, which I, at least, still espouse. Where Europe falls short, it is the open, democratic nature of Europe that can pick up, criticise and analyse those faults and find ways to do better. Isolationism can never do that.
I rejoice in the fact that our European co-operation is founded on a shared history, grounded in the desire for peace and justice, surrounded by cultural, environmental, social and economic ambition, and rounded off by a generous vision of our obligations to fellow human beings and to the world. I rejoice that that co-operation reflects my vision—and, I believe, my party’s—of how an independent Scotland would and will work with others when that time comes. To choose to remain is to choose the positive: to choose to carry on investing, with our resources and hard work, in a better future. It is a clear and easy choice. In fact, for those who want to see an independent Scotland emerge into the family of nations, there is no choice at all.
11:04