Meeting of the Parliament 09 June 2015
The debate about the UK’s membership of Europe is in the main this, and I quote:
“It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.”
There is a lot of noise and not a lot of factual analysis. Macbeth, being a Scot, was not referring to Europe, of course, but he might well have been. The salient lesson for us is that this debate is about so much more than ambiguous facts or unfacts about welfare and migration. It is our job—our job—to make sure that the real debate takes place against this nasty, right-wing rhetoric.
Being one of the family of nations so often referred to by David Cameron means, according to him, that Scotland has the rights of an equal partner. It does not seem much like it. Alongside the voters of Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland’s voters must have the right to stop the UK’s withdrawal if the electorate here rejects it. That is not pessimism; that is equal partnership.
Our membership of the EU brings enormous benefits, including 300,000 jobs and important investment as well as a fundamental freedom to travel, study, live and work anywhere in Europe. We want to work from within the EU. We do not want to be forced out by a right-wing, UKIP-friendly Westminster Government.
We know that Europe is where we need to be, not just for trade but for the free movement of people and for our own human protections, and because of the great cultural melting pot that is formed by this block of 28 nations, each with its own unique background and history.
Around 171,000 people from elsewhere in the European Union live and work in Scotland. Although they are, by definition, EU citizens, they are to be denied a vote in the referendum. Even though they are paying their UK taxes, contributing to the economy and exercising their right to live here, they are to be excluded from voting in the referendum, as they were excluded from voting in the Westminster elections.
Some may argue that it is up to Westminster to decide the franchise, but that is only if the franchise does not discriminate and fly in the face of everything that I see as democracy, which is exactly what it does. I find it incomprehensible that citizens of the Commonwealth countries in Africa and of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Cyprus and Malta who live in the UK should be allowed to vote while their EU neighbours are denied that democratic opportunity.
The picture is illogical and insulting, and it looks rather like someone is gerrymandering the result. Those who live and work here, wherever in the EU they happen to come from, might be considered to be a little more likely to vote to stay in the EU than some Tory Eurosceptics might be. Creating an electorate that tallies with a desired outcome is not part of modern-day democracy.
That brings me to another crucial point about our electorate. Our young people between the ages of 16 and 18 have known no existence other than one in which they are part of the EU. Some of the comments that I have heard from Westminster today are at best ill-informed and at worst downright offensive.
I commend to all members here and in Westminster the campaign on votes at 16 that is being run by the Scottish Youth Parliament—which has a stall in this building this week, which members should visit—and other youth parliaments in this island. In her maiden speech in 1967, Dr Winnie Ewing spoke up for votes at 16. This is not a new argument, but some of the arguments that are being used in Westminster today are old.
The youngest of the young people in the group we are talking about were born in 1999. They are not familiar with living in the British empire or the Commonwealth. They generally have an assumption of their rights and protections as legislated for by the EU, so they take them for granted, and rightly so. Why would anyone feel that they need to question their rights to an education, to a safe place to live, not to be abused or trafficked, not to be raped or beaten up, and to have access to a fair working week and a reasonable standard of living?
Scotland’s young people voted in our recent referendum. Some voted against independence and many voted in favour. They voted because we in this Scottish Parliament believed in their fundamental right to do so. They are the people who will be responsible for our future and for paying our pensions through their taxes. Denying them the opportunity of contributing their view of Scotland’s place in Europe and removing a fundamental human right will impact on their futures.
I remind all members that those young people are our future MPs and MSPs, and we have to answer to them.
15:03