Meeting of the Parliament 07 February 2017
As the First Minister has indicated, this debate on article 50 will culminate in
“one of the most significant votes in the history of the Scottish Parliament since devolution.”
If the debate were to require extra time, I am sure that we would all wish to give it that.
I am sure that I need not remind MSPs that, on 23 June last year, the people of Scotland voted clearly and decisively to remain in the European Union. That is also how Scottish MPs voted when the issue was debated in the House of Commons last week. Only one of the 59 Scottish MPs defied the wish of the majority in the country and in every local authority area, and chose to support taking Scotland out of the EU against its will.
This debate in Scotland’s Parliament gives MSPs the opportunity to speak loudly and clearly to reaffirm the vote that was so conclusive last year and to say to the United Kingdom, Europe and the world that we oppose the catastrophic hard Brexit that the Tories at Westminster are now pursuing. It has never been the case that the Scottish Parliament or any of the devolved legislatures had a veto over Brexit, but this vote is more than symbolic: it is a key test of whether Scotland’s voice is being listened to and whether our wishes can be accommodated in the UK process.
Before she became Prime Minister, Theresa May set out her view of the future of the United Kingdom:
“A future in which Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England continue to flourish side-by-side as equal partners.
Different and proud to be so.
Outward not inward.”
Those were her words.
Once she was Prime Minister, Theresa May promised that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be “fully engaged” and “fully involved” in considering—and agreeing—a common UK approach to triggering article 50.
The Scottish Government took those promises at face value. We worked long and hard to deliver—and to table in the formal UK structures—compromise proposals, showing how we can keep our place in the single market. We put those proposals before this chamber and received clear majority support for our approach. We have sought to initiate constructive consideration of those proposals, with the aim of securing a common UK approach.
We are still taking that approach. We have taken part in meeting after meeting at official, ministerial and head of Government level. So far, the UK Government has not offered a single compromise of its own. In fact, it has offered nothing—neither a formal reaction to our proposals, nor a formal rejection of them.
Accordingly, what underlies the formal substance of the motion today about a technical measure in a European treaty is a debate about democracy itself. It is a debate about how democracy should work in these islands; it is a debate about the country that the United Kingdom is becoming and the country that we in Scotland wish to be. The contrast between those countries is stark. Theresa May’s hard Brexit will lead to a hard Britain—a Britain out of the single market—with cutting immigration and enforcing borders prioritised above all else. Living standards, the economy and how the UK is seen across the world will all play second fiddle to those obsessions.
If Theresa May fails to succeed in her negotiations with the other 27 nations, she will set her country—and our country—on a race to the bottom on tax, working conditions, regulation and wages. She has said as much, to enthusiastic applause by Nigel Farage. Everyone should let that sink in, especially those on the Tory benches, who are becoming apologists for a hard, isolated Brexit and a hard, isolated Britain—just what the United Kingdom Independence Party wanted.
Of course I accept that there is a majority for leave in England and Wales, but I do not accept that there is a majority anywhere in these islands for such a narrow and regressive vision. There is certainly no such majority in Scotland, where the people—by a margin of 24 percentage points—voted to remain in the EU.