Referendum on Scottish Independence

Debate between Roger Gale and Tommy Sheppard

Monday 13th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Tommy Sheppard]

The hon. Gentleman must have difficulty hearing; I said I was not taking any interventions. Please be seated. [Interruption.]

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Tommy Sheppard]

We put that commitment in the manifesto, and we won that election. A majority of the Members of the elected Scottish Parliament believe that if Scotland is taken out of the EU against its will, that would be justification for consulting people again on the question of Scottish independence.

That was the situation as it was then, but what happened after Britain voted to leave the European Union? Did Nicola Sturgeon suddenly run in and say, “That is it. We are going to execute this. We want a second referendum now”? No, far from it. [Interruption.] If the Tories stop braying for a moment, I will tell them what happened. A Scottish Government who believed in Scottish independence and the European Union produced a document that argued for neither. It argued for a compromise solution in Brexit that would allow differential arrangements in Scotland to respect Scottish public opinion and protect Scottish interests. That is what we put to the British Government in December 2016, and in the new year it was thrown back in our faces. By Easter this year, it was perfectly clear that whatever option came out of Brexit, it was not going to afford for any differential solution in Scotland. What changed things was the election on 8 June.

People have talked about reflection and modesty. I accept that 480,000 people who voted for the SNP in 2015 declined to do so in 2017. Most of them—the vast majority—stayed at home and did not vote for anyone else. I accept that the confusion around the second referendum was a large part of many of those people’s thinking. That uncertainty is clearly there in the minds of many people, and that gives us cause for reflection, but the main thing that changed on 8 June was that the Conservative Government lost their majority, so the range of options for Brexit changed. It is an irony that the Scottish Conservatives think that the pause button has been pressed on the second referendum timetable because they won their seats, when in truth it was paused because the Tories lost seats in England and we now have a hung Parliament and do not quite know what the outcome of Brexit will be. In fact, the level of confusion and uncertainty is greater than ever. We now say that we have to wait and see what Brexit delivers to be able to decide whether we go forward with a second independence referendum.

There are only two ways that things can go from here. One is that the United Kingdom Government come to an agreement with the Scottish Government and the Brexit process goes through with the consent of the Scottish Parliament. That is one possible outcome. The other option is that the United Kingdom Government ignore the representations of Scotland, overrule them and proceed regardless. In those latter circumstances, the mandate from 2016 is still there and will be executed, because we will give the people of Scotland the right to decide whether they want the isolationist economic chaos that Brexit represents or whether they want to revisit the decision taken in 2014 and this time decide they would be better off taking matters into their own hands, and taking back control to Scotland.