Britain's Place in the World

Debate between Tom Brake and Tommy Sheppard

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard]

I very much agree, but I will move on to the wider global context. What has not been discussed so far in this debate is the fact that Britain is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. I wonder how much longer that can continue, because I would think that being a permanent member of the UN Security Council brings with it an obligation to provide some sort of global political leadership, yet that has been frighteningly absent from this country’s foreign policy for a very long time.

In fact, for far too long this country has played second fiddle to the United States of America. That might have been good in the past, but US foreign policy is in a hopeless state of collapse and incoherence that leaves the United Kingdom looking like a hapless bystander on world events, unable to command any moral purpose or argument. There are so many examples, but let us look at the one happening this week.

The Turkish Government are engaging in ethnic cleansing in the northern part of another country, and we are simply observing the situation. In fact, this country was one of the last to cut and suspend its arms sales to the Turkish Government—arms that are currently being used to kill people in Kurdistan. That is a shameful situation.

I was one of the Members who visited the Rohingya refugee camps on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border last month. As I stood on those hillsides, I felt a sense of dread that the camps will still be there in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time because, in order for them not to be there, we need international political action to stand up to the Government of Myanmar and to make them act. That is sadly absent, but it is the sort of political leadership this country ought to be giving to the world, rather than standing back and simply being an observer.

[Tom Brake]

May I add to the list of countries where we need active engagement from the UK Government? The Palestinian issue has also been completely neglected.

[Tommy Sheppard]

Indeed so, particularly when the whole middle east is about to descend into an even more frightening situation. It is an area of the world that this country was governing in living memory. If we do not have responsibility for doing something about it, who does?

I finish by thinking about what is happening 535 miles away in the city of Aberdeen, where the SNP conference is taking place. There have been a number of goads and jibes about our concern for independence, but the House should understand that when this party argues for Scotland to become a self-governing independent country, we do it not just because we believe we can make things better for the people who live there, nor just because we believe in the democratic argument that people living in Scotland, and no one else, should set their own priorities, but because we want to be able to determine our own relationships with other countries, particularly within Britain and Europe but also across the world. I assure colleagues in this House that when we get to vote on our independence, when we have an affirmative vote and when we begin to build a new country, it will be a country with open borders that wants to play its full role in the world and that wants to punch above its weight, as people from that country have done for generations.

EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Debate between Tom Brake and Tommy Sheppard

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on securing this debate. I find myself in agreement with him and with most of the speakers from the Opposition Benches.

I have a direct, personal interest in this matter: it is not one I need to declare under the code of conduct, but I have direct experience of operating in a campaign under the very regulations we are talking about today. In the summer of 2014, I was an activist and campaigner in the Scottish independence referendum. Because of my history and background in the entertainment industry, I was part of a group that was trying to co-ordinate that campaign among the arts and culture industry in Scotland. We wanted to organise a major, high-profile concert in the run-up to the event to demonstrate support and to provide a fillip for the campaign in the final days.

We went to the Yes Scotland campaign, the designated organisation, with the proposal. It said that it did not want to include it in its campaign plan and spend money on it. The advice was to go away and do it ourselves, so that is what we did. I registered my own events company with the Electoral Commission as a permitted participant in the organisation. We hired the Usher Hall, the grandest concert hall in Edinburgh, and we booked the bands. We arranged the production and the publicity, and we had a very successful event. Afterwards, we provided the Electoral Commission with a report and a detailed budget of what we had spent and the money we had received. At no stage did we either report to, or seek the involvement of, the official designated organisation.

[Tom Brake]

I am sure when the hon. Gentleman was considering what actions to take he would never have considered, for example, co-locating with the designated organisation, sharing a server with the designated organisation, or sharing the same supplier on the same basis as the designated organisation.

[Tommy Sheppard]

The right hon. Gentleman is ahead of me. I was going to say that I have had cause over recent weeks to wonder: what if we had done it differently? What if the designated campaign organisation had come to me and said, “We would like you to do this activity, and the best way to do it, because we do not want it in our budget, is if we set up a separate organisation. Just to make it easier for you, our lawyers have done the paperwork to set up the organisation. Just to make it easier for you, you can have our staff and you can work out of our office. Just to make it even easier for you, you don’t need to bother about writing the cheques, because we will book and pay for the hall and the production”? What would have happened if we had done that, I wonder? I am in no doubt about what would have happened: the Electoral Commission would have investigated. It would have found me and Yes Scotland in breach of the regulations. We would have been fined and we would have been reported to the procurator fiscal for prosecution on criminal charges.

I say that because that lived experience frames my opinion of the events we are talking about today, and my opinion is that this stinks to high heaven. In preparation for this debate, I looked at the original investigation and judgments of the Electoral Commission with regard to these complaints, and—I recommend hon. Members do this—at the High Court judgment on the application for judicial review of that decision. What it comes down to—what is absolutely central to this debate—is not whether different campaign organisations were arguing for Vote Leave, but whether they colluded to breach the expenditure limits that were set down. That is central.

Looking at the High Court judgment and other documents, it is clear that the most important thing is whether or not a common plan was in existence between Vote Leave and BeLeave, as defined under the 2000 Act. I have to say, in a situation where Vote Leave sets up a subsidiary organisation called BeLeave, uses its own personnel to establish it, manages to send it its lawyers and all sorts of support, and provides offices, computers and drives on the server for the same people, it is very difficult indeed to escape the conclusion that there was collusion and organisation between the two.

We are being asked to believe that Darren Grimes took a £600,000 contract and went to a data analytics firm in Canada, completely independently of people in Vote Leave, who had already spent £2.7 million with the very same company. It is literally unbelievable and we need to support the Electoral Commission and others in investigating this to the bottom.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and Tommy Sheppard

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard]

The right hon. Lady has much greater faith in the Government’s intentions than I perhaps do. What I am trying to suggest—I thought she might possibly agree with me—is that, by this stage in the process, we ought to have some definition of which Acts of Parliament will require amendment, because there are anomalies in them with regard to the body of EU retained law, and we ought to have narrowed down the number of areas in which we have to give Ministers the power to use their discretion and to bring forward changes through delegated legislation to our existing legislation. The fact that we have not narrowed that down and that we are still talking about giving Ministers quite sweeping and general powers is quite alarming, and I only hope that, as we go to the next stage of this process, we will get more clarity. Ministers’ defence is basically to say, “Trust us to rectify these anomalies and to get things right,” but Opposition Members are saying, “Well, we would be better able to trust you if we were able to get a reassurance that you are not going to use these powers in certain areas.” Yet, Ministers are resisting every attempt to qualify and limit the exercise of these powers.

[Tom Brake]

I would like the hon. Gentleman to cast his mind back to before 23 June last year. Can he recall prominent leave campaigners suggesting at any stage during that campaign that there would, in fact, be this very large power grab and that taking back control meant the Executive taking power away from Members of Parliament?

[Tommy Sheppard]

No, the implication was clearly given that control would be taken back by the people. In fact, it seems that control is being taken back by the Executive. In as much as power is going anywhere, it is not coming into this Chamber, certainly at the moment.