Scotland in the United Kingdom

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 9:54 am on 22 March 2007.

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Photo of Colin Fox Colin Fox SSP 9:54, 22 March 2007

The Executive's case for the union consists of three elements, essentially. It says that the union provides political stability, security for Scotland in an uncertain world and continuing economic prosperity. I want to consider those three elements, which the minister has mentioned.

First, I will deal with stability. According to recent opinion polls, David Cameron's Tories are 15 percentage points ahead of Labour. That was before yesterday's budget con. In yesterday's budget, Gordon Brown took from the poor and gave to the rich. He reduced corporation tax to 28p in the pound—it was 52p in the pound under Tony Blair's predecessor, Mrs Thatcher. A Tory victory at Westminster would be for Scottish political stability what the hyperinflation of the Weimar republic was for fiscal stability. The famous democratic deficit that led to the establishment of the Scottish Parliament will not go away. Scotland voted against Phil Gallie and the Tories for 18 years but was lumbered with them, and the Tories used Scotland as a kind of Gruinard island to try out their political anthrax—the poll tax, with all its accompanying problems. Imagine there being a Tory Government at Westminster and an anti-Tory majority at Holyrood. The word "stability" does not spring to mind.

The motion states:

"devolution 'is a process, not an event'".

Devolution is a process that Tony Blair conceded against his instincts in order to prevent full-scale independence. One is reminded of the words of Lord George Robertson—the Rambo of NATO—who opined that devolution would kill off independence for a generation. He was wrong again. The issue of independence will return with a vengeance if David Cameron wins the next Westminster election.

The second reason that the Executive has given for Scotland remaining in the United Kingdom is that doing so provides security for Scotland in an uncertain world. However, the truth is that Scotland provides the United Kingdom with a militarism that we do not want. We have the Faslane nuclear weapons base and Scottish regiments fighting in foreign wars under UK direction and Scotland is an arms manufacturing base. Who protects the world from Britain? What must the world think of Britain after last Wednesday's vote on Trident at Westminster? We threaten the world with nuclear annihilation and we have troops in Afghanistan and involved in the illegal occupation of Iraq. We have form in invading other countries. It is to our shame that Scotland is implicated in such threats and slaughter.

The third reason that the Executive has put forward in support of Scotland remaining in the United Kingdom is that we have had continuing economic prosperity under the union. Tell that to the men of Calton in east Glasgow, whose life expectancy is less than that of people in Afghanistan. Tell it to the children who live in absolute poverty—there are 270,000 of them, according to the Child Poverty Action Group. Tell it to the 800,000 people in Scotland who are low paid.

The Executive's motion deals with economic prosperity. It states that independence would

"result in either cuts in vital public services or massive increases in taxation".

That jumped out at me. I thought of Gordon Brown standing in front of the Parliament at Westminster, increasing taxes for working people and ensuring that there will be massive cuts in vital public services. Hideous, ulcerous inequality blights Scottish society, but the most effective measures to combat it are reserved. Labour will not lift Scottish kids out of poverty while there is much more of it south of the border. There is the rub. In our wealthy country, we watch helplessly as the levers for addressing endemic and chronic poverty are outwith our reach.

The Executive talks about additional powers for the Parliament. My goodness me, we need such powers. However, it does not talk about the power to stop nuclear power stations that we do not want being foisted on us, the power to stop asylum legislation that is wholly at odds with Scottish public opinion, the power to stop Trident or the power to stop our soldiers being sent to fight in Iraq. The Parliament does not have enough power to make the changes that we want to make.

I hope that everybody in Scotland who is in favour of independence accepts that the issue is a democratic issue. A majority may be opposed to independence at the moment, but the job of those who, like me, support independence is to persuade our fellow Scots that we would be better off if Scotland were independent. We must persuade them of the case for independence. In that context, I take comfort from the fact that although support for independence goes up and down, the figures reveal time and again that there is an unmistakable underlying trend in favour of it. I also take comfort from the fact that support for independence is far clearer and more profound among younger Scots and working-class Scots.

In trying to persuade our fellow Scots to support independence, we must ensure that we persuade them that the vast majority of people will be materially better off with all our revenues at our disposal. That is what an independent Scotland means to me. An independent Scotland would take cognisance of the views of the majority of Scots. The majority of the people of this country want to scrap the hated council tax, prescription charges and Trident. They want to be non-nuclear, to have free school meals provided and to have wealth redistributed. They want the rich to pay higher taxes, not lower, and they want our Scottish soldiers to be removed from Iraq. We know that to be the political centre of gravity of the people of Scotland. The case for independence is the case for making the vast majority of Scots better off economically, socially, culturally and politically.

However, by quoting big business as they do, my co-supporters of independence in the SNP risk the demobilisation of independence supporters. By promising big business a corporation tax rate of 12p in the pound, they send a vision of a different kind of Scotland from that which the vast majority of people want to see. The SSP's vision of an independent Scotland is a modern democratic republic that is free from the antiquated feudal relics of the past—a peace-loving Scotland, not a warmongering Scotland. We want a Scotland that is socially just and whose priorities are not those of speculators such as Brian Souter, Tom Farmer and George Mathewson, but those of our children. We are currently 21st out of 21 in the United Nations Children's Fund's league table of deprivation. We also want a Scotland that is multicultural and proud of it, which welcomes those who come here and choose to invest their lives and talents here alongside the talents of our people.

Scots are neither better than nor inferior to other nations; we simply want the right to make our own decisions. In my view, the break-up of the British state would be a progressive development for Scotland and the world—a world that we threaten daily with nuclear weapons, now and for the next 50 years; a world in which we invade other sovereign nations without reason; and a world in which we have the fifth-biggest arms manufacturer, which is virtually the only volume manufacturer that we have any more. For me, independence is a giant stride towards liberation from all that.

I move amendment S2M-5779.1, to leave out from "is a mutually beneficial relationship" to end and insert:

"thwarts Scotland's economic, social, cultural and political development; believes that Scotland would be better off if it were independent from the UK; believes that an independent Scotland would remove Trident nuclear weapons from the Clyde, scrap the hated council tax and prescription charges and redistribute the great wealth of Scotland to address widening inequalities and would never have agreed to send Scottish soldiers to fight a war in Iraq that is considered by many to be illegal; believes that Scots have the same democratic rights to self-determination as the people of any other country, and looks forward to a Scotland that is independent, socially just and internationalist in its outlook."