Scotland: Independence

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for providing the opportunity to speak on this matter, and for giving such a witty and eloquent introduction. I am only sorry that more of my Scottish Labour colleagues are not down to speak today. I hope earnestly that they are not feeling intimidated by Alex Salmond and his cybernat cronies who constantly attack Members of this House because we are not elected. I have in fact been elected to two councils and to two Parliaments over more than 40 years, as have some other Members who are participating in this debate. Whether they like it or not, this House is part of the UK legislature. We have a continuing responsibility, because what Alex Salmond and his party are proposing affects the whole of the United Kingdom.

Mr Salmond reminds me a bit of the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland: if he says that it is so, then it must be so. His so-called White Paper, which I do not call a White Paper, is not so. He does not have the power to implement the proposals that he is putting forward. Voting yes in the referendum is not an endorsement of all the proposals in the White Paper, and he cannot say that it is.

When he declares independence day unilaterally, as he has done, he ignores the fact that when two parties must make an agreement, the timetable cannot be determined by one side—by one of the parties. When he declares, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth said, that a separate Scotland would automatically be in the European Union, NATO and the Commonwealth, he flies in the face of logic and geopolitics, as we have heard recently from Belgium and Spain.

Mr Salmond has declared that a separate Scotland would keep the pound, ignoring that this would need the consent of the rest of the United Kingdom. When he pledges that no controls would be needed at the border between Scotland and England, but promises an open door to immigrants—which would be a different case from the rest of the United Kingdom—he also flies in the face of logic. There are many similar unilateral pronouncements throughout Scotland’s Future, which is 650 pages of continuous fiction. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that we should have a full day’s debate in this House and in the other House. I have raised that with my party group.

I will quote Voltaire rather than The Jungle Book. He wrote:

“The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe”.

Alex Salmond is living proof that Voltaire was right.