Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

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

Well, what a man to follow! [Interruption.] I am not sure that Fran and Anna here quite agree with me on that.

Let me say that we are here debating a confidence motion in the Government, but as has been said by other speakers before me, we do not have a Government. They are a Government in name only. It is essentially now a form of organised Tory hooliganism that squats in these offices of state, squats in these Departments and squats most of all in Downing Street.

One of the canards that is often advanced—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) wants to get to his feet and intervene, he is more than welcome. I am happy to have the extra 60 seconds from him. The canard often advanced by Government Members—people would not know it, but we are only having this debate because they wielded the knife on their leader just a couple of weeks ago—is that the Prime Minister “gets the big calls right”. Let us examine that proposition.

As a few Conservative Members have been asked, did he really get a big call right when, post-Salisbury and straight after a NATO summit, he went to the palazzo in Italy of a former KGB agent? Was that him getting a big call right, and he did not even have the decency to do it properly with security and logging it with his Department. That was when he was Foreign Secretary, and before he even got to Downing Street.

Did he get all the big calls right when he was partying all over the place and our constituents had to adhere to the rules as strictly as they did? Indeed, it resulted in him being the only Prime Minister—the only Prime Minister—to have received a fixed penalty notice while in office.

[Sir William Cash]

Oh, come on!

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I have witnessed the Scottish Conservative party at close quarters over the years, as you have, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I always thought, going back to the days of the hon. Gentleman’s old pal the late Sir Teddy Taylor—that tenement Tory of my constituency—that he believed in law and order, but he sits there decrying anyone who draws attention to the fact that we have a criminal in Downing Street who has the keys for another five weeks in office.

[Sir William Cash]

Is the hon. Member aware that the Lord Chief Justice himself said, in a case on fixed penalty notices when the payment was made within 28 days, that it was not a crime, that the individual could not be prosecuted and that he had left the court without a stain on his character?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman has educated me, because I did not know that, but it does not change the facts. Facts are chiels that winna ding, and those are indeed the facts.

The Prime Minister has presided over a shambles. Two weeks ago, in this very building and not so far from here, we witnessed a Government in meltdown, and yet we are asked to believe that somehow all the MPs, Ministers, Parliamentary Private Secretaries and trade envoys who resigned got it wrong, and this Prime Minister is still fit for office.

Nothing says that quite like the acres of empty green Benches on the Government side of the House tonight, so while they—[Interruption.] Well, it is a Government motion. It is a Government motion brought forward by the Prime Minister himself, and is it not telling that none of the leadership candidates have turned up to defend him here tonight? One could only imagine that several of those who have come here—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) wishes to get to his feet, I am happy to be educated once again.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

The hon. Member is making a fantastically farcical speech, but I am enjoying it immensely. It is a little bit rich, when there is an election open now, to have a go at candidates for not being here at this moment. This is a fair place and he knows the process; he has been here longer than I have. This is a six-hour debate, and I think it is fair to give some courtesies in this House.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Not all interventions are best made on your feet, as the hon. Gentleman has showed with great grace.

As far as this is viewed in Scotland, for all that we have heard not just from the leadership candidates, but from the Prime Minister himself—indeed, he was at great pains to name the various red wall constituencies that his big blue Tory ferret paraded through—it is worth noting that in Scotland, his party continues to go backwards any time the electorate face a ballot paper in their constituencies. The Tories have not won an election in Scotland since the 1950s, and the idea that we are frightened of any of these contenders now is for the birds. They will lose more elections in Scotland.

The chaos actually started with David Cameron; it is not all the fault of the current incumbent of No. 10, let us be honest. I can see that the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) at least agrees with me on that. All the chaos that has flowed from the 2016 referendum has only made the case for a strengthening—a strengthening—of Scottish democracy, which I know the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) takes seriously. There will be a referendum on Scottish independence.

[Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)]

indicated dissent.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The right hon. Member can shake his head as much as he likes. The reason why there will be one is that, like many Government Members, the public are free to change their minds. They are free to give a Government in Edinburgh a mandate, as they did in 2011, to ask that question on Scottish independence again. We rejected this rancid, squalid Brexit, which he sits there smiling about, and that is how we will reverse it in Scotland. Labour has shown us that there is no route to do it via Westminster. The only way to do it is for Scots to take their future into their own hands and create such a path back into the European community, where we belong. We will do that with our independence referendum in 2023, and I look forward to the Scottish people voting for it with enthusiasm.