Britain's Place in the World

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

I suppose, like many other hon. Members, I approach this debate by asking: “What are the implications and consequences of these proposals for the people who elected me and sent me to this place to speak for them?”

This Queen’s Speech is a mixed bag of 26 Bills; some of them will not apply to the people I represent or to Scotland, and for that I am eternally grateful. The Government in England may want to go on trying to break records in terms of the proportion of its population that they can put behind bars, and locking up more people for longer, but in Scotland we will be free to pursue policies that tackle the reasons behind crime and build social cohesion, and to have the policy aspiration, at least, of reducing our prison population.

Other proposals are probably well-meaning. No doubt laudable action is proposed on the environment, but I expect that by the time we get to see those actions—if we do—we will find that they are woefully inadequate to confront the challenge they are trying to meet. Then there are other proposals in this Queen’s Speech that are downright bad for the people I represent. The immigration Bill will remove freedom of movement; the trade Bill will take Scottish consumers and businesses out of the single market. Both those things represent an existential threat to the future of my country.

But then I consider: “What does it really matter?”, because this is entirely a charade. We know that this is a Government 40 MPs short of a majority. We know that none of this is going to pass, or come to pass, certainly in this Session of Parliament. It makes me wonder why we are engaged in this charade for six days, sitting here discussing proposals that will never happen. Of course, the truth is that the Government want to keep us occupied here, because the last thing they want to discuss is what they are talking to Brussels about at this point in time.

We also know that there is an attempt to abuse the parliamentary process and, indeed, to abuse the monarch of the country in trying to engage in what the Government hope will be a six-day party political broadcast. Well, good luck with that.

Today’s debate is about the role of Britain in the world, and many people have considered Britain’s standing in the world as part of that debate, so let me start with Brexit. I have heard a number of colleagues now say that there will be a problem if we do not, in the puerile language that we have now descended to, “get Brexit done” by 31 October; somehow, that will be a democratic outrage and it will compromise our ability to argue for democracy in other parts of the world.

Let us test that proposition. For it to be accurate, it would have to presume that there is an intention of this Parliament to overturn, negate or otherwise throw out the referendum of the British people in June 2016. I repeat for the umpteenth time that those who say that completely misunderstand the argument in this House. Nobody on the Scottish National party Benches and, as far as I have seen and witnessed in this House, nobody who is arguing about the dangers of Brexit has ever suggested that the referendum should be set aside and ignored by this Parliament. What has been argued is that the people who took that decision should be given the opportunity to reconsider and asked whether that is really what they want, knowing now what they did not know then—the terrible consequences of what that means.

We can look at this from the other end of the telescope, can we not? Imagine this: what does it do for our standing in the world to have a Government without a majority in Parliament or in the country pursuing a set of policies that, by their own admission, they know will impoverish the people they have sworn to protect and reduce the standing of the country in a global context? What does that do for our reputation, if a Government are prepared to do that without even consulting the very people in whose name they speak? Then we can look at the wider debate about Britain’s standing in the world.

[Stephen Gethins]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Does he agree that those who have the courage of their convictions would be happy to put their views to a referendum? [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman talks about an election, and I look forward to there being about as many Scottish Conservatives left as there are in the Chamber at the moment.

[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.