Claim of Right for Scotland

Ian Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

I am not going to give way. Sit down.

It is very fitting that the SNP is using our Opposition day on 4 July, Independence Day, to defend the interests, the rights and the will of the Scottish people.—[Interruption.] Listen, it may not be Independence Day to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), but I will tell him this: the way the Conservative party is treating Scotland, our independence day is coming and it is coming soon.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman says that Scotland’s independence is coming. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and I tabled an amendment to his motion—unfortunately, it was not selected, but we understand why. I wonder whether he would agree with that amendment to the motion on the basis that the Scottish people did have a vote in 2014 and they agreed to stay in the United Kingdom.

[Ian Blackford]

As a matter of fact, the hon. Gentleman is correct. Of course the people of Scotland voted in a referendum in 2014 and I say to him and others who put their name to the amendment that, yes, we would have accepted it had it been taken this afternoon.

The fundamental issue, as many people have said, is that, when the polls opened in Scotland on 18 September 2014, between the hours of 7 o’clock in the morning and 10 o’clock at night, the people of Scotland had sovereignty in their hands. The difference between SNP Members and the Conservatives is that we believe the Scottish people are always sovereign. In the light of the change in the facts and the circumstances—those being that Scotland voted to stay in the European Union by a decisive majority, and that the wishes and the rights of the Scottish people are being ignored by a Conservative Government who want to drive us out of Europe—it is perfectly right that the people of Scotland have the opportunity to demonstrate their sovereign will.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr).

At one minute past midnight this morning, the SNP Chief Whip, the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), no doubt still up late celebrating England’s win in the World cup, tweeted: breaking news, this is the very first debate we will have in Parliament on the claim of right. He obviously forgot that he had a debate on the claim of right, in his very own name, on 9 September 2016 in Westminster Hall.

I agree with many colleagues across the House that I would rather be speaking here this evening on issues relevant to my constituents and my constituency. The dilution of local policing across Scotland is showing a crime spree of house breaking and car breaking in my constituency. There is a GP crisis in my constituency. People cannot sign up to GPs. They are on waiting lists and are being kicked out of surgeries. People are waiting up to two years for operations when they used to wait only 12 weeks. The train service is in meltdown and we have an economy the Secretary of State was right to say is sluggish.

After all the debates we have had since 2016, and everything in between, we still have no answers to the big questions about what an independent Scotland would look like. We have had a Growth Commission paper that is as big an act of fiction as the original White Paper. I agree with the claim of right. The shadow Secretary of State was right. Labour invented this process and drove it on back in the late 1980s. The late great Jimmy Hood, if he were still alive today, would be championing bringing back the Scottish constitutional convention so we could resolve some of these issues—wouldn’t that be a bundle of fun, with 50-odd Scottish MPs on that particular body?

The claim of right states:

“We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government”.

The Scottish people have determined their own form of government. They determined to vote in 1997 for a Labour Government who promised to bring a referendum on a Scottish Parliament. They voted overwhelmingly to deliver that Scottish Parliament with tax-raising powers in the yes-yes vote. In the ballot box since then, they have delivered their sovereign will in choosing what they want to be achieved in terms of Governments and what they want to happen. Interestingly, they also do this at the ballot box for local government elections and lots of other elections.

I get so frustrated about these kinds of debates because it is about the sovereign will of the Scottish people for the Scottish National party, but only when it suits. The sovereign will of the Scottish people was to deliver a Scottish Parliament and stay in the United Kingdom. It was also the sovereign will of the Scottish people to deliver a Scottish Parliament where the Scottish National party does not have a majority, and that Scottish Parliament—if it is the sovereign will of the Scottish people—has over the last few years voted against the Government on fracking, cuts to the national health service, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, council funding, the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012, failing educational standards and local government cuts. And what has the sovereign will of the Scottish people received in return? Nothing from the Scottish Parliament—disregard the Scottish parliamentary votes; these did not happen; turn the other way; do not implement the will of the Scottish Parliament, which is the will of the Scottish people.

Let me say why it is frustrating that it is about the sovereign will of the Scottish people only when it suits the SNP. Look at local government: it has been completely and utterly diminished, demoralised and demolished by significant cuts from the Scottish Government, who have passed on 9% or 10% grant cuts from this place and doubled and trebled them for local government.

[Stephen Kerr]

Does the hon. Gentleman also agree that the 11 years of the SNP Government of Edinburgh has created a highly centralised state? The power grab that has gone on in Scotland is a grab to the centre by the SNP Government.

[Ian Murray]

I am glad to have taken that intervention, because it goes to the point—[Interruption.] People can start shouting, “Better Together!”, but I am going to stand up for the people of Scotland and my constituency, because I disagree fundamentally with what the leader of the SNP, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), said during his speech. He does not speak for the people of Scotland. We are entitled to have a different viewpoint. The hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) is right, because this Chamber, when the Scotland Act 2016 was given its Third Reading and Royal Assent, delivered one of the most powerful Parliaments in the world, but it is the most centralist Parliament in the world. Local government no longer exists in Scotland. It is merely an administrative arm of the Scottish Government.

Look at what we have seen today. An SNP leader of the City of Edinburgh Council wants to be given the powers to deliver a tourist tax in Edinburgh that would help hard-pressed Edinburgh Council ratepayers with all the issues that they are currently going through, and the Cabinet Secretary slaps him down on Twitter and essentially says, “No.” Where is the sovereign will of the Edinburgh people who put Adam McVey in as leader of the council under the single transferable vote system? I do not want an SNP majority-led Edinburgh Council—I want a Labour majority-led council or a Labour council majority in a coalition—but that is what the people delivered. That is the sovereign will of the people who went to the ballot box. I think that we have to reflect—I say this very publicly—on what happened in Aberdeen, when voters went to the ballot box and delivered the numbers in Aberdeen to give us what we have there. There is an incredibly centralist Government and that is why it is the sovereign will of the Scottish people only when it suits.

Let me turn to what the sovereign will of the Scottish people is actually delivering. Again, that only suits the SNP when it suits its case. The SNP refused to back a people’s vote in a referendum on the final deal from the European Union. There will be lots of different views across this Chamber—in fact, there are lots of different views among Labour Members about whether we should have a people’s vote. However, the principle for me is that, if we believe in the sovereign will of the Scottish people, why not back an additional vote for the Scottish people and people across the UK to decide on the final Brexit deal that the UK Government bring back, and then let the sovereign will of the Scottish people decide? No. The SNP reluctantly fudges it and says, “Maybe we would back it, maybe we won’t, but only if independence is on the table as part of it.” It is only the sovereign will of the Scottish people when it suits.

I simply say, on the sovereign will of the Scottish people and the convention, that it is written down. It is being delivered. It has been delivered and everything that will be delivered in the future, in terms of the sovereign will of the Scottish people, will happen at the ballot box when the people of Scotland go to vote. That is exactly what they have done. Before SNP Members start jumping up and down and saying, “What about the Brexit referendum?”, the rules of the game are as follows. There was a UK-wide referendum. People voted to leave. We are part of the United Kingdom. I hope that we do not leave. I always say, “If we leave the European Union”—I will do everything in my power to try to stop it, and if I cannot stop it, I will do everything in my power to try to soften it, but we are where we are. We cannot pick and choose votes when it suits us to pick and choose.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a strong point about the EU referendum. Does he recognise that it was based on the total number of votes across the United Kingdom, not on geography? So had the SNP joined Britain Stronger in Europe and proactively campaigned for remain, we could have got those few extra votes and kept us in. [Hon. Members: “We did!”] Not as part of Britain Stronger in Europe.

[Ian Murray]

I am sorry but I am not going to dance to the hon. Gentleman’s tune, because the Conservative party’s attitude towards Scotland at the moment is just as big a threat to the UK. It pushed through a referendum on Brexit, with the former Prime Minister betting everything on winning but losing. The attitude of the Scottish Conservatives is as big a threat to the Union at the moment. They are pushing through a hard Brexit as lobby fodder for the Prime Minister, rather than fighting for the interests of their own constituents. [Interruption.] I am happy for him to gesticulate and say, “Keep attacking the SNP,” but Government Members are just as bad on the sovereign will of the Scottish people as expressed at the ballot box. We were promised that Ruth Davidson would send Scottish Conservative MPs down to this Chamber to fight for the interests of Scotland, and not once has any of them taken a different view from the Chief Whip and the Prime Minister. So when Brexit happens and goes badly, you 12 will own it as much as the Prime Minister—sorry, the hon. Gentlemen will own it. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, will not own Brexit, because it will be owned primarily by the Scottish Conservatives.

On the theme of it being the sovereign will of the Scottish people only when it suits, I will finish with this. As we discussed, the SNP did not participate in this process, and they had no intention of ever participating in this process, regardless of the warm words we hear now, but now they grab on to this claim of right and talk about the sovereign will of the Scottish people, because it suits the SNP to do so. I suggest, very politely, that the UK Government and the Scottish Government desperately find a way to get around the table to improve the relations between two Governments so that they can at least try to work in the interests of Scotland, because while we have this flag-waving ceremony between the Conservative party and the Scottish National party, it is my constituents who lose out.