Meeting of the Parliament 26 May 2016
I congratulate all the party leaders on showing leadership on Scotland and Europe and putting the positive case for remain. I also congratulate Fiona Hyslop on her well-deserved reappointment to the Cabinet, and my other friend and colleague Alasdair Allan on his new position in the Scottish Government. I am sure that they will both wave the flag for Scotland on the international stage.
I should also say how much I look forward to representing my Moray constituents, after a nine-year absence from these benches, and to contributing to the debates on the issues facing Scotland in the times ahead.
Fifty per cent of Scotch whisky is produced in Speyside, with much of it going to EU markets. The water in the water of life is of supreme quality thanks to the EU environmental legislation that applies to our rivers and watercourses. Moray’s famous food businesses, such as Walkers Shortbread and Baxters, export a lot to EU markets. Therefore, our access to the single European market and issues around EU membership are of direct relevance to thousands of families in Moray and to the local economy.
Today, we are debating our country’s relationship with Europe, which is one of the biggest issues facing Scotland’s future, with the in/out referendum only weeks away. The Scottish dimension to the EU referendum needs to be widely debated and broadcast. There are many unique and distinctive issues for people in Scotland to consider before they decide how to vote on 23 June. However, the debate is not just about the future of Scotland or the UK but about the future of Europe. The result of the vote on 23 June will affect every single person in Scotland and across these islands, and has the potential to affect every single one of Europe’s 500 million citizens.
As someone who believes that Scotland should be a nation state in its own right, I strongly believe that Europe’s nation states must work together, sharing and pooling sovereignty where appropriate, to meet the economic, social and environmental challenges of the 21st century.
It is indeed ironic that the UK is holding a referendum—just as many nations did in the 20th century to secure lasting peace and prosperity—given that it was instrumental in founding the United Nations in 1945, subsequently joining the European Community in 1973, in the first big expansion, in recognition of the fact that it can be in the national interest to share sovereignty. It really saddens me that those high ideals have been crowded out in a referendum debate that is now dominated by immigration, especially when we consider the origins of the EU. Boris Johnson and his colleagues want to walk out of Europe, but they should knuckle down and help our fellow human beings in their hour of need.
It is also ironic that Boris Johnson recently published a biography of his hero, Winston Churchill, who in 1940 proposed a Franco-British union with shared currency and citizenship and joint economic and financial institutions. Of course, that idea to help win the war was put to Churchill by one Jean Monnet, who went on to be a founding father of the European Union with the aim of preventing another European war.
Peace in Europe is the biggest dividend, but EU membership has resulted in many benefits for our citizens. When it comes to issues such as workers’ rights, consumer protection, welfare and the environment, which Fiona Hyslop and Kezia Dugdale mentioned, Scotland is much closer to the mainstream European social democracy position than it is to the neo-liberal politics of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage and the kind of Britain that they want to see. I have no doubt that most people in Scotland are much more supportive of the policies that have been agreed by our progressive European partners and neighbours than they are of some of the more regressive positions that have often been adopted by Westminster.
The negotiations, compromises and occasional climb-downs that being a member of the club necessitates have often prevented UK ministers from imposing damaging policies on Scotland. In my nine years of involvement in European negotiations, I came across many examples of cases in which other EU member states shielded Scotland, whether in relation to the £500 million for farm payments that continues to flow to Scotland each year because UK Chancellors of the Exchequer were outmanoeuvred and outvoted at EU negotiations—