Meeting of the Parliament 19 December 2019
We all know the reality, Presiding Officer. This was not intended, and never was intended, by the Scottish National Party to be a framework bill for all referendums on any subject. This is a paving bill for indyref2. The cabinet secretary has given the game away by his demeanour and, indeed, his overblown rhetoric when it comes to his insistence that it is his right to rig the rules of a second independence referendum by bypassing the Electoral Commission’s views.
There is only one relevant question to which his validity period applies: the question that was put to the people of Scotland in 2014 about whether Scotland should become an independent country. The answer to that was, of course, no.
Sometimes the SNP wants to pretend that this is a framework bill for referendums in general, but at other times it knows that it is not that. We all know that it is not a framework bill, but a paving bill for a second independence referendum.
It is sensible to have framework legislation for referendums, if the Government has ideas on what policies it is likely to use referendums to decide things. I have asked Mr Russell many times during the process of the bill—indeed, I asked about it before the bill was introduced, when the First Minister made an announcement about her proposal for a bill in a statement on independence—what subjects other than independence this Government proposes, at any point, to put to the people of Scotland in a future referendum. Answer came there none.
The only question that Mr Russell is interested in putting to the people of Scotland in a referendum is the independence question. This is the framework bill for a second independence referendum, which is in breach of promise. In the independence referendum in 2014, the First Minister repeatedly said that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.