Scottish Independence and the Scottish Economy

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

My goodness, Mr Speaker, I hate to point out to the hon. Gentleman that 62% of those who voted in Scotland voted to stay in the European Union. I am proud to say that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I were up and down Scotland during the Brexit campaign, leading the people of Scotland and making the case for Scotland to stay in Europe.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

On that point, will the leader of the SNP please explain to us why his party spent less on the EU referendum than on a Scottish parliamentary by-election on Shetland?

[Ian Blackford]

This would be funny if it was not so tragic. It used to be the case—[Interruption.] We have many hours of debate, and if Labour and Liberal Democrat Members calm down, I am sure that they will get the opportunity to speak. Maybe I should point out to the hon. Lady that the Liberal Democrats used to proclaim staying in Europe—

[Christine Jardine]

And still do.

[Ian Blackford]

No, you don’t. If the Liberal Democrats wanted to stay in Europe, as the hon. Lady suggests, they would have that in their manifesto. The Labour party and the Liberal Democrats have run away from Europe, just as they have run away from their responsibilities to the people of Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

It was going so well. I had the Conservatives agree to this and I think I had the Labour party agree to it, but the Liberals just could not bring themselves to agree with the proposition that an independent Scotland would be a successful, independent nation.

[Christine Jardine]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

I think we have heard from the Liberals. I will come back to the hon. Lady, because I have other assertions to make. I think we have now all agreed, other than the Liberal Democrats, to that one, so let us try another.

I am going to speak about all our resources. Let us include a good proportion of nearly all of Europe’s oil and gas reserves; the greatest potential for renewable energy that exists in Europe; vast fisheries; and a water supply that is the envy of the world. With all of that, Scotland has what it takes to be an independent country. Can we all agree to that?

[Christine Jardine]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

Let us see whether the hon. Lady will agree that Scotland has what it takes to be an independent country.

[Christine Jardine]

May I point out that the hon. Gentleman misinterprets what all of us think? None of us has ever said that Scotland could not be independent, but the people of Scotland, when given the choice, voted no, because they feel that their future is better within the United Kingdom.

[Pete Wishart]

That is a little more encouraging, because I think we are moving towards the assertion that Scotland would be a successful country and it has more than what it takes to be one. Throwing this theme a wee bit further on, we could even suggest that Scotland is perhaps the best resourced country that has ever considered becoming independent. I think that is pretty incontrovertible. No country is better endowed to be an independent nation. When we look around Scotland, whether at our oil and gas reserves, our fisheries or our potential renewable energy, we see that no country is better prepared for this than Scotland. Can we agree to that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s other points, which are important, but I am keen to say this: I wanted to find agreement across the House. I thought I was making a bit of progress, but it is disappearing a little. I will try once again, to see whether I can do it.

All I want is for everybody to agree that the only way for Scotland to be a member of the European Union is by becoming independent. We know that because all the other parties are parties of Brexit now—they all want to make Brexit work. I do not know how they will do that. I do not even know whether it is possible to make Brexit work; it is almost designed not to work. It is not any sort of economic strategy but an ideological mission. But they want to make it work, so we are left in a situation where the only way—I do not see how this can be uncontroversial—to make Scotland a member of the European Union is for it to be an independent nation. We know that the Scottish people want that because that is what they voted for. We are talking about democracy: the overwhelming majority of Scottish people voted to remain in the European Union, and every single poll since then has shown that they want to rejoin the European Union.

[Christine Jardine]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

No; I have given way to the hon. Lady before.

Let us all agree that the only way for Scotland to rejoin the EU is by becoming independent. I will try another one; this one is probably not going to get there, but let us see. The only way for Scotland to get the Governments that it always votes for is as an independent nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I will do my best, Mr Deputy Speaker, and thank you very much for calling me to speak.

This is one Scot who can and will speak but who will not repeat the nonsense we have heard from the SNP Benches this evening. When I saw the motion I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), was pleased. I thought that, at last, we were going to talk about the economic damage that has been done to our country—by which I mean the United Kingdom—by the Conservative Government. At last, we were going to talk about the damage done by their financial event, or whatever we want to call it, last month, about the need for the triple lock, and about the damage that has been done to our economy and the mismanagement throughout the pandemic. That is what my constituents in Edinburgh West talk to me about when I go to their doorsteps. They want a change. They want a different Government. They want a different approach. What they do not want, and what they regularly tell me they are fed up hearing about, is independence. That is why, like my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South, I am disappointed that yet again this obsession is being brought up in the House.

Regardless of what might be claimed, the Scottish National party does not speak for the people of Scotland. The Scottish National party does not even speak for the majority of the people of Scotland. At the last count for Westminster, the hon. Members on the SNP Benches spoke for 45% of the people of Scotland, which means that those of us elsewhere in this House speak for the majority of the people in Scotland. The majority of the people in Scotland want the Government, both Governments in fact, to focus on—[Interruption.] I listened to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), so if he does not mind. The people of Scotland want both of their Governments to focus on the problems they are facing, including the energy prices we all face this winter and the cost of living, which is forcing families to choose between feeding their children and heating their homes. And they tell me that they want the First Minister of Scotland to drop the independence obsession and focus on the problems they face now.

Another issue that has been raised with me recently on the doorstep in Edinburgh is Europe and Brexit, and the SNP claim that the people of Scotland were dragged out of Europe against their will. One of my constituents said to me angrily a few weeks ago, “Can you please tell the Scottish National party to stop appropriating my vote? I did not vote for Scotland to be in the European Union; I voted for the United Kingdom to be in the European Union and I voted to stay in the United Kingdom.” I believe in the free will of the people of Scotland and I believe in the settled will of the people of Scotland. I worked for a Scottish Parliament, unlike the Scottish National party until the very last minute. I believe that the people of Scotland have free will and I believe that they exercised it in 2014 when they voted to stay in the United Kingdom.

The second half of the motion talks about the economic plans for Scotland and the Scottish Government’s independence papers series. I am well aware that if I now start to criticise those papers and talk about their flaws, I will be accused of speaking on behalf of Project Fear. [Interruption.] That is why I am going to quote some independent assessments. David Phillips, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said that the Scottish Government’s new paper on post-independence economic plans

“skirts around what achieving sustainability would likely require in the first decade of an independent Scotland: bigger tax rises or spending cuts that the UK government will have to pursue.”

Richard Murphy, professor of accounting practice at Sheffield University Management School, said:

“I think this paper lays out a policy that would be disastrous for Scotland.”

Robin McAlpine has been mentioned, and rather than use unparliamentary language I will not use his full quote, except to say that he does not really have any solutions for the border. Writing in The Scotsman, economist John McLaren concluded that

“the report is incoherent as it refuses to acknowledge exceptional circumstances and necessary trade-offs.”

The problem that a great many of us in Scotland have is that we believe that the United Kingdom is not perfect. It needs reform. We need to move forward to a more federal system. What we do not need to do is break it up, particularly at a time of economic crisis and hardship for our people, which would only be made worse by some wanting to pursue an ideological obsession that is not in the best interests of the majority of the people of Scotland.

I will make one last point. A Labour Member—the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane)—was ridiculed for using the example of Orkney. I point out to hon. Members that, during the last independence referendum, there was a saying, “It’s Shetland’s oil”. Orkney and Shetland have never voted for the SNP at Holyrood, and for more than 70 years they have voted for Liberal Democrats at Westminster. The people of Scotland are a diverse, wonderful body who have many different voices, which they do not want to be silenced by SNP Members in the way that they constantly try to do. So please have respect for the many voices, listen to the people of Scotland when they say, “It’s the economy, stupid”, and focus on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I start out in this debate on Scottish independence and the Scottish economy from the fundamental and irreducible point of principle that the best people to govern Scotland are those who have chosen to make their lives there.

I first started taking an interest in politics growing up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and that was quite a heady political time. It was before there was a Scottish Parliament of any kind. We were seeing the deindustrialisation process at the end of the Thatcherite economic experiment and the ramifications of the poll tax. It was the end of the cold war and the collapse of the iron curtain, with historic realignments as old nations emerged from the stifling power politics of the cold war. Of course, closer to home we had a debate about Scottish self-governance—not just about whether there should be a Scottish Parliament, but about how much power that Parliament should have and, indeed, whether it should be an independent Parliament.

In my particular journey to supporting independence for Scotland, I remember vividly a debate that took place in early 1992 in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, where the four leaders of the Scottish parties at that time clashed with each other in a major public debate sponsored by The Scotsman newspaper. In the aftermath of that clash of visions, Scotland returned 12 Conservative MPs in the general election later that year, in contrast to the 60 non-Conservative MPs, yet still we had a Conservative Government running us with a Secretary of State and his team of Ministers coming under parliamentary scrutiny once every four weeks for half an hour ahead of Prime Minister’s Question Time, which seemed to me to be thoroughly unsatisfactory. Looking back to those times, I have a pet theory that if only we could get every single adult Scot of voting age to come down here, sit in the Public Gallery and watch Scottish questions followed by Prime Minister’s Question Time, we would not be having another referendum with a 55% vote to stay in the UK, but a near unanimous vote to become independent. That formative set of experiences and references led me to conclude, as Jim Sillars subsequently described it, that Scottish independence is simply the constitutional settlement that is superior to all others. I have been an enthusiastic proponent of that point of view ever since, and I am happy to debate it with all comers. Indeed, I am sorry that the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) is no longer in her seat, as I have happy memories of debating against her in Victoria Hall in Ellon ahead of the 2014 referendum, before either of us were elected. I am not so sure that the hon. Lady has quite such happy memories of the debate that night as I do, but it was nevertheless a robust act of civic political engagement, which was all to the good.

The constitution is not the only political issue that has animated me over that time. I have also been striving for fairness in our economy, for social justice and equality in our society, and to improve and invest in our infrastructure. I have of course been seized of the urgent need to tackle climate change, and embrace the considerable renewable opportunities that we have in Scotland. Unlike others of different political stamps, for me it is impossible to ignore the clear link between the condition of Scotland and its constitution, and how decisions are taken, by whom, and off the back of what mandate. I do not believe it is possible to separate the need to improve the condition of Scotland from the reality that that constitutional status acts as a huge impediment to doing so. No matter how good an idea, or what people vote to endorse in elections, unless it happens to be compatible with prevailing political ideas at Westminster, and the parameters that sets for policy and also budgetary frameworks, it simply does not happen.

That is not to say that good things have not happened in Scotland since devolution. Since 1999, Scotland has been governed by a Lib-Lab coalition, then by an SNP minority and an SNP majority, and it is currently governed by a coalition between the SNP and the Greens. Each Government have taken and are taking Scotland forward in their way, and I have no hesitation in saying that whatever their stamp, each of those Governments helped to put Scotland into a better condition at the end of their period in government than it was in when they took office, despite the lack of tax, borrowing and welfare powers, which restricted the ability of Governments of all kinds to act as they might have wished over that time.

There is a rather partisan argument that gets made, but it is a bit too clever-clever for my liking. It usually comes from elements in the Labour party, and it states that devolution and independence are different constitutional processes, with no common ground possible between the two. I do not think the people of Scotland have ever seen it in such stark terms, because the immediate point of common ground that I have with anyone who wants devolution, is that every power they wish to be exercised from a Scottish Parliament, I want as well. The difference is that I do not believe that devolution can ever satisfactorily address how to resolve the conflict that inevitably arises whenever the choices and interests of people in Scotland do not coincide with choices made elsewhere in the UK, or the priorities that are divined from that by the UK Government of the day.

In his opening remarks the Secretary of State said that we had a referendum in 2014, and indeed we did. I say to him as gently as I can, however, that things have moved on quite a bit since then. I remember speaking in another debate during the 2014 referendum, not in Ellon but as part of a panel for a debate in Peterhead in the constituency of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid). It was in no less a place than the ballroom of the Palace Hotel, and it was extremely busy—again, I have very happy memories of that night, perhaps happier than those on the no side. I was confronted in my summing up by a familiar argument that an independent Scotland would somehow find itself outside the European Union. It was all part of a trope—by that stage it was pretty familiar—of fears and smears, and that somehow an independent Scotland would find itself on the outside, isolated from all that was good and at the mercy of all that was bad.

It was getting late in the evening, so I decided to dispatch that argument as quickly, as cleanly and as humanely as I could by saying that the only way in which we would be in danger of being outside the European Union in the near future was if people voted no to independence and afterwards the Boris and Nigel show was allowed to take over. Now, I freely admit that, when I said that, I thought that I was using a little exaggeration to make the point as best I could—it was an argument that did not seem to have any basis in political reality. Little could I have imagined that, just over two years later, it had turned into the ghoulish, nightmarish reality.

The fact is, in 2014, the no campaign made a number of bold pledges about how being in the UK was a guarantee of economic stability, that we would be progressing to something as close to federalism as possible over that time and that, of course—this is the real pearler—the only way to guarantee our EU membership was through a no vote, when in fact that was what deprived us of it. Practically every single rhetorical plague of locusts or horsemen of the apocalypse prophesised in that campaign as a result of voting yes has come to pass as part of Brexit Britain, so much so that the entire Better Together prospectus to persuade Scots to vote no has been put through the shredder. It is hardly surprising that support for independence has moved in the direction that it has since then.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) could not have been clearer about where he stands. The Labour party now supports Brexit, and it tells us that it will not reverse it. While he is content to excoriate the record of the Conservatives in office, and rightly so, it seems that he would rather persevere with a political system, which over the course of the last century has seen the Conservatives in power for two years out of every three—a party rejected continually by Scotland at the ballot box—simply for the distant prize that he and his party might hold power for one year in every three. That might be good enough for him, but it is certainly not good enough for me—and increasingly, it is not good enough for people in Scotland.

Why independence? Why not try to reform from within? Labour has made it clear that it has no interest in meaningful reform of our decision making process. It will keep the House of Lords and it wants to keep the voting system, because, as I said, having that untrammelled power one year in every three seems to make everything else worth while.

The Lib Dems talk about moving nearer to federalism. Of course, they have spoken about that since the days of William Ewart Gladstone—[Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Edinburgh West say, “Why don’t we do it?” Quite simply, there is no coherent, credible plan for it. Perhaps she could intervene and tell me how the Lib Dems plan to do it. Will there be an English Parliament? Will it be like “Strictly Come Dancing”? BBC regions? How will they do it?

[Christine Jardine]

Actually, the Campbell commission came up with a report on exactly how it could be done and, to give the Labour party credit, Gordon Brown has now issued his proposals, and Scotland’s Futures is working together. The hon. Member asked how we would do it. We would have assemblies for the other parts of the United Kingdom. The metropolitan Mayors are moving towards a more representative approach. It can be done and, if we had the SNP’s support, perhaps we could do it.

[Richard Thomson]

That is the trouble—there is no support for it. I am willing to believe that the hon. Lady has not made a single speech or argument or delivered a single leaflet about that in any of the regions in England that she plans to create. I suspect that, were I to go to the south-east, the south-west or any region of England, it would come as an enormous surprise to people to find out that that is being planned.

The Lib Dems were in coalition Government with the Conservatives from 2010. They had a referendum that was supposed to be on proportional representation, but they could not even get a form of proportional representation on to the ballot paper, and now we are being invited to believe that, somehow, just because Gordon Brown says so, we will be able to rewire the entirety of the British constitution in a way that will satisfy aspirations. I do not believe that. It is just another dead end which Scots would be well advised to avoid.

I return to my central point. The best people to run Scotland and to decide how Scotland should be run are those who have chosen to make their lives there. As the UK post-Brexit turns in upon itself and away from its closest neighbours and the alliances that have served it so well since it joined the European Union, Scotland has a choice: to continue to attach itself to that British Brexit decline, or to take its place on the world stage as an independent country with Governments we elect who are limited only by the constraints of our own resources, the limits of our own imaginations, the limits of our own democratic choices, and by constraints set by nowhere else.