Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 30 December 2020
Today, the Scottish National Party and, I hope, the Parliament, will vote on principle. We will vote against a rotten Brexit that Scotland has rejected all along, and we will say no to a hard Brexit deal that damages our economy, our society and the opportunities of this and future generations.
I will say more on that shortly. First, let me issue a challenge to Tory members of the Scottish Parliament who say that we should back this deal. If they support this deal, they should set out for us today, in clear and simple terms, what the benefits of it to Scotland actually are, and they should then tell us how it comes even close to honouring Scotland’s choices. My prediction is that the Tories will do none of that today because, quite simply, they cannot. Far from respecting Scotland’s democratic wishes, this deal rides roughshod over them. Compared with European Union membership, it has no benefits, only massive downsides—and, to the eternal shame of the Tories, it even betrays wholesale the promises that were made to Scotland’s fishermen.
What we will hear from the Tories, who are bereft of any positive case, is desperate, diversionary nonsense. They will say that we have to back this deal not because it is any good but because the alternative is worse. That, frankly, is an insult to Scotland’s intelligence. It is legally suspect, for a start. More to the point, as we will see very shortly, this deal will pass regardless of how Scotland’s MPs vote, because that is what the Westminster establishment has decided.
The fact is that Scotland’s voice has been ignored on Brexit all along, every single step of the way, but the real disgrace of the Tory position is the notion that lies at the heart of it—that the best that Scotland can ever hope for is a choice between a terrible outcome and an even worse outcome. Well, the bad news for the Tories is that, just like Brexit itself, that is a notion that people in Scotland are increasingly rejecting. More and more people are realising that we can do better. We do not have to accept whatever dismal future the Tories decide to foist upon us; we can choose our own future instead.