Part of First Minister's Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at 12:00 pm on 28 June 2007.
Pursuing, in our case, a policy of independence or, in the case of others in the chamber, a policy of federalism or enhanced powers for this Parliament is quite honourable and a perfectly legitimate stance to take in politics. I assure Annabel Goldie that I shall always pursue the aim of independence. Indeed, this Government will publish within its first 100 days its white paper on independence.
Having different constitutional objectives should not prevent people from co-operating on other issues. Indeed, only yesterday, Annabel Goldie, Bill Aitken, Kenny MacAskill, Nicola Sturgeon and I had what I thought was an extremely productive meeting in which we addressed one of the great scourges in Scottish and other societies—the scourge of drug addiction. None of the different views that Annabel Goldie and I have on Scotland's future prevented us from having that meeting and taking joint action on that crucial issue.