Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future

I inform the House that I have selected amendment (b) in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the upcoming Scottish Parliamentary general election and Scotland’s right to choose its constitutional future.

We have been waiting a while for a third party Opposition day, so I am delighted that we get to set the agenda today. The timing of this debate could not be more apposite. On 6 May, Scotland goes to the polls for a general election to the Scottish Parliament. The consequences of the outcome of that election could be profound, both for Scotland and for the rest of the United Kingdom, so it is fitting that this Parliament gets an opportunity—perhaps its last opportunity—to debate what it thinks of that before the campaign starts and before the election takes place. I hope we can have a thoughtful and considered discussion about the political principles that will infuse that campaign, and perhaps leave behind some of the more intemperate remarks that are often a hallmark of the campaign itself.

To understand what is happening currently in Scotland, we need to start with two facts. The first is that Scotland is not a region of a unitary state seeking secession from it; it is a country that has been in existence for many centuries. Indeed, it is a nation that is, by voluntary association, part of a multinational state that we call the United Kingdom. The second fact is that in determining how consent to that voluntary association should be given, the people of Scotland are ultimately sovereign in making the decision.

The claim to be sovereign has been around for at least eight centuries, but in the modern era it was codified in 1989 by the Scottish constitutional convention in a document called “A Claim of Right for Scotland”, which asserted that the people of Scotland have the right to determine the form of government best suited to their needs. For a while that claim, which underpinned the 20 years of policy and argument that were to follow, was relatively uncontroversial. In fact, even in 2014 the Scottish Conservative party issued a statement saying that although it did not think that the people of Scotland should vote for independence, it very much endorsed and agreed with their right to do so.

On 18 September 2014, the claim was put into practice and there was a living experience of that right being exercised in the referendum on whether Scotland should become an independent country. Even after the referendum, the Smith commission noted in 2016 that nothing in its report would preclude the people of Scotland voting to become an independent country in the future. As late as 2018, which seems only a blink of an eye away, we discussed the claim of right in this Chamber, and this Parliament and this House reaffirmed their commitment to the principle.

I remember that debate, and particularly the contribution of the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray). He felt frustrated and aggrieved; although he agreed with and supported the claim of right, he thought that my party was acting in bad faith, because the claim of right had been exercised at the referendum and we did not respect the result and the judgment of the people of Scotland in exercising their self-determination to remain in the United Kingdom. In fact, that is not true. We very much respect the decision that was taken on 18 December 2014. Indeed, had it not been for the will of the people to do otherwise, that might have been the end of the matter for a very considerable period of time. But the fact is that it was not.

I have an embarrassment of riches. I give way first to the hon. Member for Redcar (Jacob Young).

The hon. Gentleman is recalling all these different examples of when people have discussed the claim of right; does he remember when the leader of his party said of the 2014 referendum that it was a “once-in-a-generation” referendum?

All good things come to those who wait, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I will be dealing with the “once in a generation” tagline later in my speech.

On referendums and whether they should take place, the question will arise as to who should make the decision. If we believe in the will of the Scottish people to choose their own destiny, then the answer can only be that the people of Scotland should decide whether to have another referendum. I accept that there needs to be a debate about how we gauge their opinion and what democratic mechanism is used for them to express their view. Well, democratic societies will quite often do that by using the electoral process and the process of voting, and in 2016 that is exactly what happened. My party did not go into the election in 2016 saying, “There must be another referendum and, 18 months forward, we disrespect the decision that was taken.” We went to the polls saying: “It looks like things are beginning to happen in the UK that will change the whole nature of the options available to people, and there may be circumstances in which it would be legitimate and proper to go forward and reconsider the question again in a second referendum.” That was the mandate that we were given by the people of Scotland in 2016.

That was six weeks before the Brexit vote in the UK, and no one could have anticipated what would unfold in the years after the May 2016 general election in Scotland. People in England voted by a small majority to leave the European Union and people in Scotland voted, by a much larger majority, to stay in the European Union. Overall, the vote was such that there was a narrow majority to leave, and the British Government began the tortuous process of extricating the United Kingdom from the European Union. That process was made all the more difficult and painful by the Government’s decision not to try to accommodate any of the wishes of the people on the losing side of the argument and to seek the maximum possible dissociation from the European Union. That is what happened, and we remember the agonising twists and turns in that process.

But the fact remains that Brexit has happened, so an independent Scotland would have to apply to rejoin the EU. Leaving aside whether it would be wise for Scotland to replace union with a country that is right next door to it with one with a body that is hundreds of miles away, why does the hon. Gentleman think that Spain, with its problems of Catalonia, would ever facilitate Scotland rejoining the EU?

That is not the subject of today’s debate, but it only takes a cursory reading of statements from European premiers to see that their mood has completely changed and they would welcome, many of them with open arms, a self-governing Scotland into the European Union. But we are getting ahead of ourselves, because we have not yet had the ability to take that decision.

As the Brexit process unfolded, two things became clear. One was that Scotland’s views were to be completely disregarded, but even more worryingly, we saw the British Government begin to put in place mechanisms to replace the jurisdiction of the European Union that would centralise political power in this country and reduce the capacity and competence of the devolved Administrations in Holyrood and, indeed, Cardiff.

By the end of 2019 it became clear that those two things were creating a fundamentally different terrain on which the future of the United Kingdom and the future of Scotland should be judged. It was the determination of the Scottish Parliament by resolution at that time that the conditions set in the mandate of 2016 had been met and that that mandate should now be discharged. Therefore, the Scottish Parliament voted and applied to the British Government for a section 30 order to begin the process of having a further referendum. The response by the Prime Minister was fast and furious, and he dismissed it out of hand.

We were about to get into an argument about that when the world literally turned upside down and a small microbe brought humanity almost to its knees. As covid-19 raced across the globe, and as our economy and society ground to a halt, the Scottish Government—rightly, in my view—decided to shelve any preparations or plans for a further referendum until that matter was dealt with. Had the pandemic not happened, we might well be having a very different discussion today. But we are where we are, and we are 51 days away from the Scottish general election, at which the existing mandate will expire. At that election, my party and others will be seeking a new, fresh mandate from the Scottish people to assert their right to choose whether they wish to remain in a post-Brexit Britain, or whether Scotland’s fortunes are better served by having a choice and becoming a self-governing independent European country. That is what will be at stake in the 2021 election.

The hon. Gentleman said that page 1 will obviously refer to independence. I wonder whether page 2 will go back to what Nicola Sturgeon referred to as the focal point of her premiership: education. Perhaps we could have the OECD’s review of the curriculum for excellence before the May elections, rather than after, so that the people of Scotland can see the Scottish National party’s record on education since it took over in 2007.

I am more than happy for the record of the Scottish Government to be judged by the people on 6 May as well; independence and the referendum is not the only thing we shall be voting on. This SNP Government have been in power for 14 years, and what they do seems to go down rather well with the people of Scotland; I very much look forward to their judgment on that question on 6 May.

The hon. Gentleman’s party is seeking a new mandate on 6 May. If it does not get the majority it is seeking, will he therefore rule out the SNP trying again to seek a divisive second referendum?

Everything we do is subject to the will of an endorsement by the people of Scotland; so, obviously, if they do not want to take a particular course of action that we are recommending, that will not happen. If the Conservatives win on 6 May, I accept that there will not be a referendum. I hope they will accept that if we win, there will be, and that it will be legitimate for that to happen.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

If the hon. Member does not mind, I am going to make some progress.

We need to consider what this Chamber’s response would be to that likely outcome. I do not take anything for granted. The campaign has not started; not a single vote has been cast, and I do not take anyone’s vote for granted. We will be arguing for this right up to 10 o’clock on polling day. But I think people will want to know what the reaction of this Parliament here in Westminster would be if they were to take a decision saying that they wanted to have that choice again. That is why we need to be very careful about the language that is used by different opponents in this campaign. The way in which it is described will, in itself, condition how people vote on 6 May.

The only legitimate, proper and democratic response would be to say, “We disagree with the decision you’ve taken, but we respect your right to take it, and the British Government will therefore co-operate with the Scottish Government in trying to deliver on the wishes of the people freely and democratically expressed at the ballot box.” That is the reaction that I would hope to see. There are only two other possible responses. The first would be to say, “That process of election is not a sufficient democratic event to allow the choice of the people to be gauged, and therefore we won’t accept it”, in which case, those making that argument have to say by which mechanism people can resolve to go forward in this matter. The second other possible response would be, “Well, it doesn’t matter what the result was, because we do not respect that it is a decision for you to make.” That would be rejecting the claim of right, it would be rejecting the right of people in Scotland to make a choice, and it would take us into uncharted territory, because it would move the United Kingdom from being a multinational state built on the co-operation and consent of the people who live in its component parts, to being a state based on coercion of people throughout its borders to comply with things even if they disagree with them. That would be a completely different territory.

I am going to make this the last intervention, because I am going to have to get on.

I am quite surprised that the hon. Gentleman has not mentioned independence polls, because he used to like to do that—especially when today’s shows that 57% of people would vote against separation. Will he elaborate on what he attributes the Scottish people’s change of mind to?

I did not mention polls because I would have thought it is too obvious, is it not? We had 22 polls in a row that showed majority support for independence, so I think—[Interruption.] Well, the poll that matters is the one that takes place on 6 May. I think all of us can agree on that.

In moving on, I want to deal with some of the themes that will come up in this campaign. This is where I will rejoin some of the comments and questions that were made in earlier interventions. First, let me deal with this question—this mantra—of “once in a generation”. The Prime Minister has repeated it ad nauseam over the last 12 months. Sometimes, in some of the iterations in which he speaks, we would think that those words were on the ballot paper on 18 September 2014.

I accept that the phrase “once in a generation” was part of the debate, but let us at least be honest with each other about the context in which it was said. It was said, invariably, by those who were proposing a yes vote for independence as a caution to their supporters that they might not get another chance. It was not made as a promise or a qualification to those who opposed independence that it would go away forever.

We have dealt with who should decide whether there is another referendum, but the truth—and I fully accept it—is that, had the result on 18 September 2014 been decisive and had circumstances not changed, that might well have been the end of it, but things did change, opinion did change, and it is for the people of Scotland now to make this determination.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?