Referendum on Scottish Independence

Ged Killen Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Gerard Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jack]

I shall make some progress first.

That message resonated with Scots right across the country, quite simply because people are fed up with Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP putting their obsession with our constitution ahead of governing in the interests of Scotland. Today’s debate is not about whether Scottish independence would be a good thing; I argue strongly that it would not be. It is another debate about process, which, as the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) made clear, is something that the SNP loves.

Constantly talking about this issue is like having Cicero’s sword of Damocles looming over the Scottish economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and I commend Mr Bailey for his earlier efforts in chairing this debate, which opens for many people outwith Scotland a window on Scottish politics. When I considered replying to this debate, I was, like the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), mindful of the words of The National, which indicated this debate was very important. It is therefore surprising that less than half of the SNP Members of Parliament sought to even attend the debate, never mind take part. Let us make that absolutely clear, so that it is on the record, before we hear about the next Unionist conspiracy to make sure that only two or three SNP MPs got to speak, while Unionists crowded them out. It was a choice not to take part in this debate, which I think readers of The National will be most disappointed to hear.

We have added in some ways to the collection of human knowledge. It is disappointing that the Westminster leader of the party, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), has left. I am sure the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) said one thing that he would have agreed with: anything Alex Salmond says cannot be relied on. It is good to get that on the record before that well-known Bolshevik begins his new career.

One point that will be of interest to many yes voters and SNP voters is that the position of the SNP is to block the UK leaving the EU. That will not go down well with the 500,000 yes voters and the 400,000 SNP voters. I do not think it will go down well with Jim Sillars; I look forward to hearing his response. It will not go down well with Alex Neil and the SNP MSPs who voted to leave the EU, but at least the position is clear: the SNP is for blocking the UK leaving the EU.

Another point flushed out, which was clear from several Members and certainly clear in the speech made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), is that another independence referendum, in the view of the SNP, is simply paused. It is not over, not stopped, but paused. That is why there is a very important message to everyone listening to this debate. Every vote ever cast for the SNP will be taken as a vote in support of another independence referendum and in support of independence. That is the case. We have heard it justified as to why the SNP is entitled to take this position, because every single person who voted for them wanted another independence referendum and wants independence. So Scotland beware: vote SNP, get another independence referendum. We have to be very clear on that.

From a Unionist point of view, we could take some solace in the complacency of the SNP—something the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) referred to. The fact that the SNP came within 600 votes of losing another six seats does not seem to have been taken on board. Earlier, the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) was promoting the support for the SNP in his constituency, but forgot to tell us that his vote came down by nearly 10% and the Conservative vote went up by 18%. That was a clear message from his voters that they did not want to hear about independence.

I thought that the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) sought to offer a balanced view of the two petitions; he mentioned both, and that probably fulfilled his obligation. What he did not say, of course, was that the petition asking for an independence referendum only got heard on the back of the 220,000 people who did not want an independence referendum, because a petition that attracted fewer than 40,000 votes would not in itself get a debate in Parliament.

We have had an independence referendum—that was the theme of much of what has been said. It was a legal and fair referendum. Many aspects of the engagement were welcome. In particular, I found the school debates in which I took part encouraging, in terms of how our young people applied themselves. Nobody, however, can deny that there were many aspects of that referendum that were seriously unpleasant and that we would not want to hold up as a model. It is important for us in the political class to recognise that although we might go on about how great it was that 84.7% of people voted and all the meetings that were held, ordinary members of the public did not enjoy the referendum process. Other than those who are diehards on both sides of the debate, I do not find people on the doorstep who say, “That 2014 referendum was great—the best time of my life.” What they say—even those who voted yes—is: “I don’t want to go through that again.”

[Gerard Killen]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if we were to accept demands for a second independence referendum from the Scottish National party and it was successful in that referendum, it would set a precedent to revisit that decision in a third referendum for Scotland to go back into the United Kingdom? What precedent would that set for the future constitution of the UK?

[David Mundell]

The hon. Gentleman is correct. We were told in the Edinburgh agreement that the result would be respected on both sides. The hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) referred to the reconciliation service, at which I was present. I was hopeful, at that point, that it would lead to a way forward. That did not happen.

There was a point at which the SNP, and those people who had argued for yes, came out and said that to make their case they needed to make a bigger tent, bring more people in, and convince people. Today, however, we have heard what has become the core of their message: the people of Scotland were duped and we need to do it all over again. That is essentially what we have heard from SNP Members. In the tirade of negativity from the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, nothing positive was said about what an independent Scotland would be like or would do. In particular, nothing was said about Andrew Wilson’s report on how the £14 billion deficit would be managed. That is a piece of information that I would want, as a Scottish voter, before there was any prospect of opening up another independence referendum.

A lot of the arguments have been well rehearsed. I will not respond to the essentially political points made by the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird). We see in Scotland how the Scottish Labour party talks about the Labour party, and that is what she has replicated here today. All of us who support the United Kingdom should follow the example of her colleague, the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), who made the case, albeit from a socialist perspective, for the United Kingdom, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) did very eloquently too.

The message from this debate, this petition and everything we have heard from the SNP is that we cannot be complacent. We must make the case for the United Kingdom all the time, and ensure that in elections the SNP does not get itself into a position where it can take forward another independence referendum.