Meeting of the Parliament 19 December 2019
MSPs from all across the chamber should be here to speak in support of a non-controversial technical bill to manage the detail of referendums that might take place in the future. Unfortunately, we are not in that position: the bill that is before us this afternoon is not just a technical bill, and nor has the Scottish Government designed it as a non-partisan bill.
No one here is under any illusion: the bill will pass this afternoon with the votes of the two nationalist parties in the chamber, and it will be portrayed, by the Scottish Government, to the rest of the UK and to the UK Government, as the will of the Scottish people. Of course, it is no such thing, because the two nationalist parties fixed the terms of the bill for their partisan advantage.
The independent Electoral Commission is being bypassed in respect of the question that the nationalists want to re-put to the Scottish people.
The Electoral Commission said:
“We continue to be of the view that should a future referendum on Scottish Independence be brought forward, the Commission should be required to reassess the question regardless of whether it will take place within the ‘validity period’. This will ensure confidence in the legitimacy of the referendum result.”
Mike Russell and Patrick Harvie tried to hoodwink us over the view of the Electoral Commission. However, Mike Russell also said that the “validity period” applies only to the current session of Parliament. He is wrong. Let me read from the relevant section, for him.
“In subsection (7), the “validity period” means ... the period composed of the session of the Scottish Parliament in which the proposed date of the referendum falls and the preceding session.”
Is Mike Russell in charge of the content of his bill, or is he trying to hoodwink us again?
Mike Russell, for the Scottish Government, has been too clever by half—a charge that is often put to him. He has almost, but not quite—thanks to the nationalist Greens—single-handedly put what should have been a non-controversial bill before us and turned it into a nationalist charade. Today, the nationalists’ mask has slipped.