European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between James Cartlidge and Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

In his denunciation of Stalinism from exile in Paris in 1951, the Polish poet and diplomat, Czeslaw Milosz, wrote in his seminal book “The Captive Mind”:

“Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.”

He was, of course, admonishing his fellow citizens who had sought to convince themselves that any progress was to come from the road to servitude that had been planned for eastern Europe in the wake of two world wars.

As we reflect today on the Herculean tyranny that engulfed the people of Europe in the form of gulags, gas chambers and a wall in Berlin, it is surely right that we ask ourselves whether we really want to embark on the road the Government are asking us to take next week. The Government are asking Parliament to clutch at their illusions. As we consider a document that seeks to sever our membership of the Union of Europe, we should remind ourselves time and again of what that great peace project was born from.

As Europe stood at the gates of hell, as it did for years, great leaders across the continent pulled it back and authored the fragile but imperfect peace that millions of us enjoy today. Those of us who believe in that peace should defend it and guard it with jealousy. After centuries of war among our people, a pan-European social, diplomatic and economic architecture, underpinned by rules, reason and a desire to keep the peace, is what our forefathers gifted to us.

UK citizens, not least in Scotland, have been among the largest beneficiaries and most enthusiastic participants. Just look at the rhapsodic uptake of the freedom of movement. Where once the skies and waters of Europe were filled with warring air forces and navies, now our skies are filled with innumerable airlines packed with people. Our waters and skies were once the scenes of war, and now there is free movement across a market of 500 million people.

Gone are the days of tyranny, war and walls. Instead, a new easyJet generation have had their hearts and minds opened to the continent. We have all been made immeasurably richer by the ability to move around the continent, driven by a desire to do commerce, exchange ideas, experience new cultures and share our own. Surely free movement is an unparalleled triumph of democracy.

Look at what opening up the nations of Europe, and all the advancements of humankind that followed, has done for Europe. Look at what it has done for countries that were once satellite states of the Soviet Union or that lived under one of Europe’s assorted dictatorships. It has transformed nations and economies. Where once stood communism and Nazism, there now stand strong democracies across the continent with a free press, an open economy and civil society.

Freedom of movement is quite literally the living embodiment of the freedom that wars have been fought over, yet here we have a Government presenting the ending of that diplomatic achievement as some kind of gain. Only a fool could think so. Only the historically illiterate could champion the ending of the freedom of movement.

In my constituency there are just under 1,500 EU nationals in active employment, with many more studying or living in retirement. I cannot, in all good conscience, return and tell them that I have voted to end the very right that has allowed them to come here and, worse, that they will have to pay £65—essentially a tax on foreigners—and go through a registration process, all to enjoy the rights that they currently enjoy and have enjoyed for decades.

I foresee Scotland regaining her independence, which I want with every fibre of my being. I believe that the nations of the UK will always be the friendliest of neighbours, looking out for each other and looking out for each other’s interests in the different forums that underpin the international rules around the world.

[James Cartlidge]

Which currency would that independent Scotland use?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I will confine my remarks to the issue at hand.

The current constitutional arrangement forbids Scotland from interacting on an equal footing either with our neighbours in the rest of the UK or, indeed, with the other nations of the European Union. We in Scotland can see it every day, whether the hon. Gentleman likes it or not—we see the cost to Scotland of not being an independent country and member of the European Union. Instead, we are locked in a Union that has little appetite to take Scotland’s interests into account. Nobody is buying the empty platitudes of the “plucky Brits” that once struck a chord at home and abroad. This is the stuff of white noise and it makes us a laughing stock in the capitals of Europe.

I do not want this miserable deal imposed on Scotland, but I also do not want it imposed on the people of the rest of the United Kingdom. It is solipsistic; it is isolationist; and at times it is even capricious—I want nothing to do with it. The deal puts us on a devastating path, as the security landscape across the continent and the wider world is ever more complex. So I will not vote for a deal that discards our security needs—needs that the Government fail to take seriously.

The day when we were originally due to vote on the deal, 11 December, marked five years since the then Yanukovych Government in Ukraine opened fire on young protesters in Maidan Square who wanted to join the European Union. How perverse that this sorry Government would ask us to vote to leave that European Union on the day that marked five years from when the so-called “heavenly hundred” were killed by their own Government for wishing to join the European Union.

I say this to progressives around the UK: Scotland has stood by you since Brexit was voted for in 2016. When Scotland finally—finally—regains its independence and seeks to join the European Union as an independent member state, I say to our progressive friends around the UK: just as we stood by you, we want you to stand with us.