Queen’s Speech

Earl of Glasgow Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Glasgow (LD)]

My Lords, as many other speakers, including the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, and my noble friend Lord Stephen, have already highlighted, for the 20 or so Scottish Peers who actually live in Scotland, there is no issue more critical, in or out of the Queen’s Speech, than the oncoming referendum on Scottish independence. A year ago, we were reasonably confident that a sizeable majority of our fellow Scots would vote to remain in the United Kingdom, but now we are not so sure.

Apparently, there are still about 20% of Scots who have not made up their mind on how they are going to vote, and the crafty Mr Salmond has cleverly made the prospect of an independent Scotland seem more and more glamorous and exciting: a great new adventure into the unknown when we resourceful and inventive Scots will have the power to make our own decisions and overcome all the obstacles that the patronising English—and patronising Scots with suspect English connections—will attempt to put in our path. No, all the disadvantages and new problems that, we are told, an independent Scotland will have to face are either greatly exaggerated or, in time, will be resolved to Scotland’s advantage. Even those independent and unbiased assessments of future difficulties, even a mild warning from President Obama, are interpreted as a form of bullying by outsiders who do not have Scotland’s best interests at heart. Anything that can be construed as a foreign threat only makes a few more of my fellow Scots more defiant and more determined to give independence a try.

This referendum is not really about economics, jobs, business or the future prosperity of Scotland. It is about passion and romantic nationalism. It harks back to a time when Scotland as a separate country had legitimate reasons to hate the English. That position is not helped by those English—who tend to be Conservatives, by the way—who say, “Good riddance to the Scots. In spite of the generous concessions we make to them, they don’t like us. Let them go. We don’t need them”. How short-sighted those English are. They have not grasped how much a greatly weakened Britain—a United Kingdom without Scotland—will adversely affect them too.

I fear that I am a very poor spokesman for the union for two reasons. First, I was educated, if that is the right word, in England, so I am regarded as deeply suspect by supporters of the Scottish National Party and by some other Scots. Secondly, my title, the Earl of Glasgow, was earned almost entirely for work on the Act of Union in 1707. David Boyle, who became the first Earl of Glasgow in 1703, was one of the architects of the union. He was Treasurer-Depute in the Scottish Parliament, and worked tirelessly to ensure that the Act of Union came about, supported and egged on by the merchants of Glasgow, who saw union with England, particularly the ability to trade with the English colonies, as essential to their future prosperity. It is rumoured that the first Earl acquired stashes of slush money from the Court of St James specifically to bribe Jacobites in the Scottish Parliament to vote against their natural instincts. Even if that is true, I have always contended that it is not the person who does the bribing in a good cause who should be condemned; it is those who accept the bribes who should look to their consciences.

We must remember that at the time of the union, England and Scotland were very close to being at war with each other, particularly in the Caribbean, where England refused to let the Scots trade with their colonies. In an attempt to compete with the English, the Scots suffered the humiliation and tragedy of the Darien scheme, which resulted in near-bankruptcy for Scotland. After that, union with England became the only possible answer and, after five years of negotiation and hard bargaining, Scotland secured a pretty good deal. It retained its own independent legal system and its own church and England paid off Scotland’s debts from the Darien fiasco. The passing of the Act resulted in a period of great prosperity for England and Scotland, not to mention the flowering of Scotland’s age of enlightenment.

As we approach the day of the referendum, it is important to remember why the Act of Union came into being in the first place. Scottish nationalists will argue that circumstances are very different now: that Scotland is prosperous and does not need support from England. I am sure we all agree that Scotland could manage perfectly well as an independent country, much as the Republic of Ireland does now, but no major world power would take a blind bit of notice of what Scotland thinks or believes. Within the United Kingdom, however, the Scots still have influence in world affairs. Mr Salmond argues that Scotland today is virtually disenfranchised because a Conservative Government are in power. He forgets to mention that the Scots disproportionately rule the whole of Britain when Labour wins an election.

Scotland’s history has been the same as that of the rest of the United Kingdom for more than 300 years. It is incomprehensible to me that so many of my countrymen now wish to break up a union that has been so comparatively successful for so long. In spite of a few changing circumstances, it seems to me that most of the issues that resulted in the Act of Union are as relevant today as they were then. We Scots have the misfortune, unlike the Scandinavian countries, of having a much larger and more powerful country occupying the same island as we do. I can hope only that a majority of my countrymen will appreciate that is in our interest as well as England’s that we remain partners, rather than returning to the days of being rivals.