Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2020
I assure Jackson Carlaw that the proposals are available on the internet. I am sure that he is able to use a computer. However, in the interests of consensus, I will ensure that a copy of the proposals is personally delivered to Jackson Carlaw’s office later this afternoon. Perhaps we can then get his support for the proposals and he can try to persuade the UK Government not to dismiss them out of hand. I will wait for that intervention from Jackson Carlaw.
Having our future imposed on us by a UK Government that is utterly contemptuous of our views is not good enough. It is a Government that is contemptuous of our interests and that seems intent not on preserving a close relationship with the EU but on diverging and deregulating. What that means for the future of workers’ rights, environmental protections, the shape of our economy and the nature of our society is profound.
Labour, in particular, should reflect on this point. If it continues to stand against the right of the Scottish people to even consider a different future, it is that Tory vision for Scotland’s future that it is giving the green light to—a Tory vision that is driven on the part of some by jingoism and xenophobia; a Tory vision that will narrow the horizons of the next generation, make the country poorer and hit hardest those who are already poor and vulnerable. If Labour stands aside and lets that come to pass, it will be on Labour just as much as it is on the Conservatives.
At the heart of all this is a basic fact. Brexit—and everything that will flow from it—is happening against the will of the vast majority of the Scottish people. It is an affront to democracy and, of course, it represents a material change of circumstances from those that we faced in the 2014 independence referendum. Back then, the message from those on the anti-independence side could not have been clearer. The only way to protect EU membership, they said, was to reject independence. As Ruth Davidson said:
“No means we stay in. We are members of the European Union”.
Of course, we were also told back then that the Tories would probably not win the next election and that the prospect of Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister was just a scare story. Yet now, because we are not independent, we have a Boris Johnson-led majority Government that Scotland did not vote for and we stand just two days away from losing our EU membership and all the rights that go with it.
In my view, it is now beyond doubt that the only realistic way for Scotland to return to the heart of Europe and ensure that we get the Governments that we vote for is to become an independent country.