Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP) [V]]

I have to say I cannot understand why the proposition that Scotland has the right to choose its own future is so controversial for some. I accept that not everyone in Scotland, or even further afield, wishes Scotland to become a self-governing country. However, I cannot comprehend these voices who are so afraid of what the people of Scotland may decide about their own future that they believe the solution is to prevent the people of Scotland from having the opportunity to make such a choice at all. Surely anyone can see that that is not a sustainable and logical position to take. For anyone in this Chamber to tell the people of Scotland—the people of any nation—that no matter what they vote for they will not have it unless we approve, only adds to the swelling SNP ranks, as increasingly the people of Scotland take exception to being told by those for whom they did not vote that what they might vote for in future will not be permitted. It makes a nonsense of any idea of a partnership of equals.

I say in all honesty that many Unionists are nervous about this strategy of simply denying democracy for that very reason. They know it plays very badly in Scotland. However, as many in the Chamber today will tell you off the record, they understand that, if the SNP, the party that exists to persuade Scots to choose self-government and will stand on that platform, wins the election in May and secures a majority, a mandate for an independence referendum will exist—and it will be delivered, just as it was delivered in 2014. Anyone who doubts that only has to look at the Tory election leaflets today going out across Scotland telling people that, if they want to stop an independence referendum, vote Tory. That is how we know that an SNP majority will absolutely deliver that mandate. It is as simple as that.

Despite the bluster, the attempt to divert the debate down blind alleys and the shrieking at squirrels, these are the undisputable facts. Today is about Scotland’s constitutional choices and I have to say to those who deny that such a choice should even exist: you are sorely out of touch with the people of Scotland.