Meeting of the Parliament 23 February 2023
I associate the members on the Conservative benches with the welcome to the consul of Ukraine.
On a visit a few months ago to the MS Victoria ship, which is docked in Leith and on which hundreds of Ukrainians are currently being housed, I saw something that has left an indelible mark on me. There was a gallery of pictures drawn by the many children who are living on that boat, and one of the pictures caught my attention. It was a picture of Ukraine and above it was written: “I will go home”. That revealed so much—not just the honesty and defiance that children sometimes express better than adults but, perhaps more pertinently, the fact that Ukrainians in Scotland do not see themselves as staying here permanently. They do not like to be called refugees, because they are not—we are simply a staging post before they return home.
That is why it is so important that, today of all days, we stand together as a Parliament in solidarity with people in and of Ukraine. We will of course support the motion in the name of Neil Gray this evening. I associate the members on the Conservative benches with his remarks and I thank him for his on-going efforts to keep Opposition MSPs updated on what the Scottish Government is doing to support Ukrainians who are living in Scotland, and on its wider work on that important issue.
It is vital that we have the debate today, to make it clear that Scotland stands with Ukraine during the conflict. The slings and arrows of domestic politics and the cut and thrust of everyday debate in this chamber do not matter today. Like Parliaments around the world, the Scottish Parliament will send a message of hope to Ukraine, and a robust rejection of Russia’s illegal war, which will be a year old tomorrow.