Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]]

I suspect that even the most ardent Unionist would find it hard to disagree with the basic proposition that a country in a voluntary political union should at all times have the right to choose its constitutional future. The real question is when Scotland should be able to revisit the decision made in September 2014. British politicians telling us that now is not the time tends to mean not ever, so let us analyse what “once in a generation” means in political terms.

The six and a half years that have passed since the 2014 referendum have been tumultuous. We have had three general elections, three Prime Ministers and a UK-wide referendum on EU membership, followed by a serious push for a second referendum on the same topic from people such as the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), who is now so averse to a second independence referendum. Notwithstanding those efforts, Britain has left the European Union and now we are suffering from a global pandemic. That is a lot more political change than normally happens in the span of a generation. The result of all this turmoil is that more and more people living in Scotland want to revisit the decision made in 2014.

England and Scotland chose markedly different paths on Brexit. That, and the fact that people have more confidence in the Scottish Government’s handling of the pandemic than the British Government’s, are major factors in the change of heart taking place in Scotland. Perhaps the biggest problem that the UK Government and the official Opposition have in attempting to stop another independence referendum is the existence of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. That Act provides that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland may allow repeat referendums on Irish unity with only a seven-year interval in between. Even allowing for the very different context, if seven years between referendums on the question of whether to leave the United Kingdom is acceptable for Northern Ireland, why is it not acceptable for Scotland? I would like the Minister to address that directly when he sums up today.

The British Government have pressed ahead with their constitutional priorities regardless of the pandemic and its economic fallout, so why should not the Scottish Government? The need to rebuild our economy and our society in the wake of the pandemic provides an impetus to rethink our priorities. If we do not take radical steps now, there will be no change and we will go back to where we were before, which was not a sustainable place. In order to transform Scotland, we need full control over all the decisions that affect us, not just limited powers to tinker around the edges. Independence for Scotland is not an end in itself, but a means to ensuring that the vital decisions about how we run our economy and our society are taken close to home, so that we can do things differently and better.