Meeting of the Parliament 15 November 2018
To address the substance of the question, no, I do not agree. It is obvious that a reading of any of the documents indicates that there are huge similarities with what is being proposed for Northern Ireland. A negotiation that led to implementation of some of the recommendations of “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, which was published in December 2016, would allow for a sensible compromise.
It is more likely that the precious union—I notice that the word “union” has to have the word “precious” in front of it now for any Tory to talk about it—is more likely to be damaged in the long term and in extremis by the type of dogmatic approach that the Prime Minister has taken or the completely out-of-touch approach that we have heard from Mr Tomkins. I believe—actually, I know—that on those Tory benches there are people who know how ridiculous and appalling the situation is. There are sensible people who would support a sensible way forward and who could not in any way support what they see happening at Westminster, where the Tory party is literally falling to pieces before our eyes.
I hope that perhaps some of those people might eventually step forward and say that enough is enough, because that is in essence what I think that they should do, as representatives of the Scottish people rather than as Conservatives. That is their choice. I do not believe that the tone of Adam Tomkins’s question does anything other than prove the fact that he may well be one of those people who knows how wrong the situation is.