Hansard

This is a day of broken promises—but it could never have been anything else. UK voters were promised all the benefits of EU membership and none of the costs. Today, we see xenophobic British nationalists cheering as new barriers of bureaucracy are erected; as hard-won standards that protect us at work, in what we eat and even in the air that we breathe are put at risk; and as our family of nations is presented as rivals at a time when the world needs international co-operation more than ever.

However, in many ways, it is something that Brexiteers campaigned for and delivered that pains me the most: the end of free movement. That was the issue that many on the leave side were most motivated by, but, of course, the referendum itself gave no mandate for it. If the UK Government had wanted a referendum about how much it hates immigration, it should have printed that question on the ballot papers; it did not.

Of course, the politicians, their wealthy donors, the tax dodgers and the media owners who brought about the Brexit project will not lose their freedom of movement—they are just taking it away from those without their privileges. That loss is the greatest tragedy. Century after century, generation after generation of young people from the countries of Europe were marched by their Governments into fields and ditches to slaughter one another. In the past few decades, we have built institutions that give them a different future and the ability to choose for themselves where to travel to and where to live, work, study, learn and make a life. It tears my heart out to see that fantastic opportunity being taken away from the next generation. It is a fundamental failure to recognise Europe’s historic purpose as a peace project.

It is ironic that the Conservative amendment is in the name of Ruth Davidson, who clearly, given her speech, believes that others should be held to their words. It was Ruth Davidson who, before the 2014 referendum, told me that I was being disingenuous for saying that voting no would put our place in Europe at risk. It was Ruth Davidson who, before the 2016 referendum, positioned herself as the challenger to everything that Boris Johnson stood for. It was Ruth Davidson who, after the Brexit vote, said that we should absolutely stay in the single market. It is Ruth Davidson who has now accepted a peerage from that same hard-right populist Boris Johnson so that she never needs to face democratic accountability again.

We should all be conscious of the undoubted social, economic and political harm that the deal will do. It is worth noting that the Labour amendment acknowledges that the deal that Labour MPs are backing at Westminster does harm that will need to be mitigated. Does Scottish Labour really think that, in the words of Richard Leonard’s amendment, the UK Conservative Government will step up and start to work with us on workers’ rights or on environmental standards, when the Scottish Conservatives are voting against legislation here to do just that, or that the UK Government will U-turn on its perverse and vindictive decision to withdraw from Erasmus? I do not think so.

If Labour MPs back the deal at Westminster, I think that it is clear that they will accept responsibility for it. However, if the Scottish Labour Party thinks that its amendment helps to cover their confused position somehow, I will not oppose it.

We have all witnessed the Prime Minister’s deliberate—I think that it is deliberate—dancing on the edge of a cliff. We have now seen an agreement with no scrutiny announced, and a bill published on the same day as the legislative consent memorandum is debated here, with the UK Government absolutely certain to ignore the decision that we make in this Parliament. That is a pathetic parody of scrutiny, but that, of course, is how the take-back-control mob like to operate.

I understand why some people just want all this to be over. In reality, the self-inflicted wound of Brexit will not stop getting worse just because the agreement is signed or put into law. The economic, social, environmental and political harm will continue.

To some people, today marks the end of their long campaign of British exceptionalism, xenophobia, anti-immigrant rhetoric and free market deregulation extremism. To some people, it might feel like the end of a period of extraordinary chaos, incompetence and hubris in the governance of the UK.

To me, this moment is not an end; in the long run, it will mark only a temporary interruption of our place in the European family. It is the beginning of a campaign to rejoin. Scotland’s future is as part of that family. I hope that the rest of the UK will reach that decision too, some day. I even hope that Europe will have them back. In the words of the pledge that the European movement in Scotland has just launched:

“We declare that Scotland is a European country, embracing our common values of peace, democracy, human rights, equality, sustainability and solidarity. The clear wish of the great majority of the Scottish people is that Scotland should be within the European Union. We commit to working to bring this about, whatever Scotland’s constitutional status.”

In short, Presiding Officer, we will be back.