Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 24 February 2021
The election of a dishonest, racist and misogynist leader, the UK Prime Minister, might suggest that Tories believe in redemption and the power to change. We know that that is not the case. Tories are about privilege. Tories are about building barriers and devising bogeymen. Tories are about contempt for human rights. Tories are about disregarding Scotland’s Parliament, ignoring uncomfortable evidence and continually spouting negativity. Scotland’s Tories are about undermining Scotland’s institutions and the people who work for them.
There are three facts in the Government’s amendment. It is a fact that voting rights were extended
“to comply with a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights”.
It is a fact that the legislation that provided for the extension of voting rights enjoyed super-majority support—and that that was the will of the Scottish Parliament, for which the Tories often purport to have regard. It is a fact that
“similar actions have been taken”
elsewhere. It is also certainly the case that the Scottish Parliament will
“take the action that it considers necessary to comply with human rights obligations.”
The Scottish Conservatives are the nasty party—the party of the rape clause, the party of austerity, the food bank party—and they are proud of it. Tories belittle alternatives to custodial sentences and therefore those who work in our criminal justice social work departments and their third sector partners.
Scottish Greens believe in a criminal justice system that seeks to prevent crime by addressing one of the principal causes of crime: poverty. Tories create poverty, and they blame and place no value on the people who are in poverty. South of the border, the Tories—the so-called law and order party—hand out public contracts to their mates and donors, with no procurement process and no need to give a contract for ferries to a ferry company, and then smirk when they are found out by the courts, which they hold in contempt anyway.
Tories know nothing about compassion. Tories know nothing about rehabilitation. We need only read their words on drugs. Tories care nothing about the rights of children and the evidence of harm. Their stance on equal protection for children is simply shameful.
I value shrieval judgment in Scotland.