Meeting of the Parliament 30 January 2024
No—I have to make progress.
People need change, and that process can start by booting out the Tories and electing a UK Labour Government. Labour has set out practical and achievable solutions to fix the Tories’ Brexit mess with a better relationship with the EU and improvements to the TCA.
We need to use the scheduled review of the TCA to tear down unnecessary trade barriers. We also need to support our world-leading services and scientists by seeking the mutual recognition of professional services. Labour will seek a better deal for financial services, and a new defence and security pact with the EU. In the realm of culture, Labour has set out clearly its intention to fix the visa issues for touring musicians and artists, and to seek an EU cultural touring agreement.
People also want a wider programme of economic and social change. The creation of Great British energy and a new deal for working people are just two important examples of practical, deliverable change that can improve people’s lives.
That is in sharp contrast to the SNP. Its members are not principled on Europe; they are opportunists. The nationalists opposed EU membership in the 1975 referendum. In 2014, they were willing to forsake our place in Europe. We must not forget that the SNP spent more money on the Shetland by-election than it spent during the entire EU referendum campaign. In 2019, during the Brexit votes, it did not even vote in favour of a customs union.
Its policy position on the issue remains unclear and confused. I ask the cabinet secretary about his comments on the Lisbon treaty being
“completely and utterly unacceptable”
and
“a travesty”.—[Official Report, House of Commons, 26 February 2008; Vol 472, c 1020.]
That seems hard to square with the more recent enthusiasm to render an independent Scotland subject to that treaty.
The Government wants an independent Scotland to join the EU but seems ambivalent on whether it is prepared to join the euro—something that many experts agree would be essential. The Government’s own internal analysis, which has been released through freedom of information, shows that it would take years for an independent Scotland to even join the EU—years of vast economic upheaval, about which the Scottish Government is rarely candid with the Scottish public.
That is why people cannot take seriously these debates and those papers. The sad reality is that the debate has more to do with the SNP Government’s internal politics than with matters of substance and of pressing concern to the people of Scotland.
The people of Scotland deserve better. They deserve Scottish and UK Governments that will deliver on their priorities and tackle their concerns.
I move amendment S6M-12004.1, to leave out from “being” to end and insert:
“Scottish and UK Labour administrations.”
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.