Hansard

I join others in acknowledging the events that have prompted us to have this debate at this time: the extraordinary impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, coming in the wake of the killing of George Floyd—an event that echoed police violence, brutality and racism down the ages.

It took place in the extraordinary context of a public health crisis. That context reminds us that when restrictions need to be enforced for the public good, people need to know that the authorities, including the Government and the police, are acting in their interests and respecting their human rights. Sadly, that is not the case in the United States. Its systemic racist police brutality and voter suppression long pre-date the Covid crisis, but both have been exacerbated by the current circumstances.

The Black Lives Matter movement, in all its expressions, is necessary and urgent, and it demands our support. At the same time, we all have a responsibility to echo, as the minister said, the critically important public health message. Nothing in my amendment is intended to encourage mass gatherings—I do not encourage them. I remind members that last week, during First Minister’s question time, I said that I hoped that everybody who was considering joining a protest would

“act responsibly and observe social distancing”,

and that

“Perhaps it would be better to do something from home, such as donating to ... community bail funds”.—[Official Report, 3 June 2020; c 10.]

I say that again, while praising police forces that have chosen to make low-key and non-provocative responses to protests—unlike in London, for example, where some protesters have been kettled such that they have been unable to observe social distancing, and have been held in one place for six or seven hours, into the small hours of the morning, without food, water or access to a toilet. That response is not appropriate.

As I said last week, people are asking themselves, “What can I do?” As politicians, we need to do the same. I am very conscious that I ask that question of myself as a white politician, in an overwhelmingly white party, in an overwhelmingly white Parliament. However, my amendment sets out some specific actions that we could take. On exports, for example, many of us would like to see an end to the arms industry everywhere, and I hope that we all want to see an end to state violence. Those might be long-term ideals, but as long as the arms industry exists, we must constantly ask ourselves how its products will be used, and by whom.

Clearly, the US is not a safe country to which we should be exporting tear gas, rubber bullets and riot gear. Those are the weapons of oppression in a society in which police forces—which, in some states, were founded as slave-capturing militias—still display deeply institutional racism. Those forces have also become increasingly militarised and have, in some places in recent weeks, begun to behave in a paramilitary fashion, displaying no identification and being subject to no accountability.

In that context, the call to defund the police should be in no way controversial when compared with defunding of education, healthcare and housing, which has been endured disproportionately by black communities.

As for our own history, there is so much to reflect on. The Government response to Covid has included fiscal intervention that has been described as unprecedented. I will take the time to count the full bill: it is now £100 billion and could reach £200 billion. As we look at that, we should reflect on an aspect of the United Kingdom’s slavery history that shocks most of us when we learn of it. When the legal slave trade was finally done away with, the UK Government borrowed for compensation money that was equivalent to £300 billion in today’s terms. That compensation was not for the victims of slavery but for the perpetrators, who had already profited from their brutality. Even the abolitionists thought that the slavers deserved reward instead of punishment for their crimes against humanity.

That is not ancient history. Much of the inequality that we live with today—in wealth, opportunity, political power and privileged education—can be traced back directly to that extraordinary transfer of wealth from the public to the slave owners. That transfer was funded by Government debt that we have been paying off ever since, until just five years ago. Why did I never learn of that at school, or of the other details of the brutal history of slavery and colonialism? What can we do to improve the teaching of that history?

I know that there are different views on monuments and street names, as has been highlighted once again by the removal of Edward Colston’s statue—an action that was taken by people who were deeply frustrated that their previous persistent efforts to achieve that had been blocked. Our actions need not be about tearing down history; they can be about placing history in its proper context. Perhaps the right context for Edward Colston’s statue is the bottom of the docks that he used in carrying out his lethal business.

In Glasgow, whether or not we choose to rename streets or the area that we still euphemistically call the Merchant City, we could institute new memorials—lasting visible and permanent structures to remind people of the history. That is not about tearing down or erasing history, but about finally and truthfully telling history.

I thank colleagues from the Scottish National Party and the Labour Party for taking an approach that has allowed us to unite all our positions. I also thank the Presiding Officer for finding a solution in the form of a technical change, rather than a substantive change, to ensure that all the positions can be supported, so I will support the other two parties’ positions at decision time tonight.

I move amendment S5M-22004.2, to leave out from “across the world” to “equality” and insert:

“and police brutality across the world; expresses and shares the sympathy, grief and anger of so many at the death of George Floyd; stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and considers that the UK Government must immediately suspend all export licences for tear gas, rubber bullets and riot gear to the US; recognises that public protest should be conducted safely in the current public health crisis; encourages people to continue to find safe ways to lend their voice to protest against racism in all its forms; believes that there is a responsibility on us all to identify and dismantle barriers of structural racism that exist in our society and institutions; agrees that it is up to all in society to tackle racism and advance race equality; agrees that Scotland should establish a slavery museum to address our historic links to the slave trade; regrets the fact that so many monuments and street names still celebrate the perpetrators and profiteers of slavery, and calls on all levels of government to work to address this toxic legacy”.