EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK
Debate between Torcuil Crichton and Stephen Gethins(2 weeks ago)
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Stephen Gethins
Let me just make one more point, and then I will take an intervention from the Labour Benches.
We know the importance of food and energy security, and Ukraine, Moldova and others see their future in Europe, so why on earth does the UK not? Eighty per cent of our 16 to 24-year olds want not a customs union, but to rejoin the EU. Seventy-five per cent of Scots want to rejoin, because Brexit has been a failure.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
Nobody can doubt the hon. Member’s Europhile credentials, but I do doubt his party’s commitment to unions of any kind. Why else would the SNP spend more fighting a by-election in Shetland than it did fighting the Brexit referendum? When he has finished answering that, perhaps he can tell us why his party spent more fighting the Glenrothes by-election than it did fighting Brexit.
Stephen Gethins
I am glad the hon. Member raised that. In Scotland we campaigned and overwhelmingly voted to remain in the EU—a vote that was ignored by his party and by this place as an anti-democratic protest. On the point of how much campaigning was done, the Brexit referendum took place six weeks after the Scottish, Welsh and London elections. In order to make the campaigning period longer, I tabled an amendment to the European Union Referendum Bill so that we could campaign more, spend more and make the case more, but his party rejected it. Its Members walked into the Lobby with the Conservative party, as they often do, to reject that amendment. I tabled an amendment so that 16-year-olds could vote, as they do in Scotland; his party rejected it. The only amendment it endorsed, and I am glad it did, was one that allowed European nationals to have the vote—that one was accepted. Throughout the process, we sought to amend the damage that his party had done under the Labour leader at the time, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn).
Stephen Gethins
“Who’s he?” he says. He was your leader over two general elections.
Brexit has failed. Many of those who spoke of democracy have since taken their seats in the House of Lords and will never have to face the electorate again. We even have limitations on discussing and debating the Head of State, as has been happening today on, in fairness, a Liberal Democrat motion. To those who bewail the chaos and failure that has enveloped the UK over the past decade, which has seen us run through six—soon to be seven, apparently, if the Scottish Labour leader has their way—British prime ministers since the Brexit referendum, I say: please, reflect on where we are. We need to rejoin. I will endorse anything that brings us closer to the EU, but we know that anything would be simply less bad.
Ten years on, enough is enough. I am about to listen to all these Members make the case for Europe. I say to Liberal Members, to Tory Members, and to Labour Members in particular: have the courage of your convictions and get us closer to Europe, get us rejoining Europe, and stop damaging the UK.
St Andrew’s Day and Scottish Affairs
Debate between Torcuil Crichton and Stephen Gethins(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Torcuil Crichton
The hon. Member mentions a national sovereign wealth fund, which the SNP called for, to be funded from oil revenues, in the ’70s and ’80s—
Torcuil Crichton
And the ’90s, and maybe until today. The SNP Government had the opportunity to put one in place when they auctioned the ScotWind licenses for offshore wind for £700 million—they would have done it for £70 million, but were given guidance on that. They had the opportunity to either invest that £700 million in a sovereign wealth fund, or to give it back to the coastal communities from which those revenues flow, but they did none of that. They have used half of that £700 million in day-to-day expenditure, have they not?
Stephen Gethins
We focus an awful lot on the Scottish Parliament. I have no problem with that, but Members who sit here choose to be part of a Parliament that has powers that far outweigh those of the Scottish Parliament. I do not like that, but other Members here do.
On the future generations fund, since we are having a biblical debate and there has been biblical reference, I say to the hon. Member—he will not mind—that, to paraphrase Matthew’s gospel, sometimes you talk about the speck in my eye and ignore the plank in yours. Some £1.5 trillion, and 1.5% of every share on earth from the top 5,000 companies, is now in Norwegian hands, and Norway can use that, with transformative effect. If he thinks that Westminster control over oil and gas and other aspects of energy—it still has that responsibility—has been positive, I encourage him to think again. It has not been wholly positive; things have failed. As he has prompted me, it should be reflected that the failings of Holyrood are dwarfed by the gargantuan failings of Westminster. There has been Brexit, austerity—the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale was part of the Cabinet who brought that in—the Truss Budget, which put up all mortgages, and our relationship with the rest of Europe. Those failings have now been brought to bear.