Commonwealth Day 2021

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. It is also a pleasure to contribute to this debate and to follow a number of interesting contributions from various points on the political compass. As my party’s foreign affairs lead at Westminster, I am fond of the idea of the Commonwealth. I am glad to see 54 sovereign states working together, proving that post-independence countries do work together closely to achieve common endeavours, can co-operate, and maintain bonds and the ties of affection that we all want to continue.

Post-independence, which is my party’s proposition, we will seek to join the Commonwealth as an independent state in our own right—making it 55. We want to maintain the bonds that we have and work together, but we want to work together as sovereign equals because my party has a different vision of Scotland’s best future, and that is a lively debate within Scotland parallel to Commonwealth membership.

Joining the Commonwealth is part of our foreign policy stance going forward, but it is part of our foreign policy stance, not the main one, frankly. The cornerstone of Scotland’s foreign policy will be EU membership. The cornerstone of Scotland’s defence policy will be NATO membership. The cornerstone of our trade policy will be EU membership, because it is possible to have the best of both. It is possible—as the UK enjoyed until recently—to be part of the Commonwealth and part of the EU, as has been proven.

We will look at the Commonwealth on its merits, but the EU is our focus. We want to regain the real-world practical advantages of individuals as citizens able to live, work, study and retire across the whole of the European continent, and to maintain the good relationships with the Commonwealth going forward that will also be useful.

We think it is a potentially useful forum, but I must say—striking a slightly more critical note—that it is also an opportunity missed, and some of the praise that we have heard for the Commonwealth today needs to be balanced with some of the reality that we need to see far greater progress. In 2013, the Commonwealth adopted a charter on justice, democracy, human rights, tolerance, the rule of law, the promotion of women’s rights and others—all laudable aims and very much to be supported.

What we have not seen, however, is the progress towards those aims that needs to actually happen to effect real change in the lives of the people of the sovereign countries working together towards those aims. For Commonwealth countries, the reality is that far too many still fall far too short of the standards we need to see on women’s rights, LGBTI equality and the rule of law. The Commonwealth has been far too quiet in that discussion.

I appreciate keenly that the Commonwealth is not about telling one country or another how to run its affairs, but where there are common aims it is incumbent upon the centre to speak with a loud voice when those standards are falling. We have seen the Commonwealth being far too quiet and too little resource being put into the Commonwealth secretariat. We are seeing a UK that is walking away from its official development assistance commitments in terms of the 0.7%, which really is the gold standard of decency internationally. The gap between perception and reality is what we will be focusing upon and upon which the Commonwealth can do much better.

However, I believe in engaging to make things better. I think the Commonwealth is a potentially useful forum, and we wish it well on Commonwealth Day, albeit recently passed. I look forward to an independent Scotland being part of that co-operation where we will be an enthusiastic voice for precisely the things that we all say we want to see happen.