Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

I will make some progress. There is a valuable point that this place has to learn. Democracy in the United Kingdom does not begin and end in this Parliament, and has not done so for some time. Yet at the moment, we are in a situation where the unelected House of Lords along the corridor will have a greater say on what happens next than the elected devolved Administrations.

I will set out some questions that I know those in the devolved Administrations will be asking themselves. What happens to the coastal communities fund, upon which fishing communities depend? What happens to the CAP—an issue raised not least by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil)? What happens to the renewables obligations, where Scotland is streaking ahead of the rest of the United Kingdom, along with our climate change obligations? What happens to our world-leading universities—I have to mention the University of St Andrews and its outstanding work in this field?

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

Never heard of it!

[Stephen Gethins]

My hon. Friend is clearly in need of a better education.

What happens to the environment and our air pollution targets? What happens to the social protections? All those questions are unanswered—and we still do not have an answer on what will happen on the single market or to European nationals.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I have often thought about the lessons we in the Scottish National party can learn from this referendum and the referendum in Scotland of two years ago. If some hon. Members find themselves in a confusing position, they should think how we feel. We are on both the winning and the losing sides of this referendum, because, of course, we won the argument in Scotland, where we did our campaigning, but the UK-wide vote was to leave. Yes, I do indeed accept that the UK’s vote was to leave, but politics in Scotland is raw, as hon. Members will know. If the House put even a smidgen of the effort that it has put into political healing this afternoon into the Scottish political debate, we would have much better politics and political debate across these islands. Instead, any time independence is mentioned, we are constantly told, “You voted to stay in the UK. Back in your box and be quiet”, and so that seems to continue here just now.

Before 23 June, many people were told that it was time to take their country back, to vote to leave and to take back control. I remember coming to London on the Sunday after the referendum, passing through Parliament square and seeing a sign held up by someone who had voted to remain that said, “I want my country back.” That is how many of us still feel. Part of the problem is that the leave side has not thought about how to own its victory. That was evidenced in the campaign, and I do not claim by any means that the remain side was perfect—far from it—and it is evidenced here today as well.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) is right: we have started to see the process of political healing here this afternoon, but it needs to go further. If we continue with this boundary of us versus them, as we see in the Daily Mail today—the “remoaners”, as we are sometimes called, which is rather ironic from a newspaper that has done nothing but moan about the European Union for 40 years—we will not move forward. The politics of grievance and confusion will set in, and that is a threat to community cohesion, to our economy and to our international standing in the world.

It is the responsibility of all Members to ask questions, to scrutinise the Government’s plans and, indeed, to inform them. “Brexit means Brexit” was enough to get the Prime Minister through her coronation and her summer, but that has gone now. We need to see some meat on the bone. There is no point in replacing one political project—the EU, which many Members felt was something that was done to them, rather than including them—with a Brexit process that will equally be something done to people, as opposed to including them.

Hon. Members might think that it is my job, as an SNP Member, to undermine this place as much as possible. I do not come here with any secret agenda to try to block the vote, as has been suggested, and to try to thwart the Government’s ability to negotiate on our behalf. My party and, indeed, all Members want to see a successful negotiation with the other EU member states. Irrespective of where constitutional politics in Scotland goes over the coming time—I have my views on that, as Members would expect—we want to see a successful rest of the UK as well. That is in all our interests. We have started to move in the right direction. I only hope that Government Members will keep that up, as we move forward.