UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Legal Continuity) (Scotland) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 21 March 2018.

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Photo of Michael Russell Michael Russell Scottish National Party

He will build a better effigy this year.

I have lived to my 65th year to find myself described in terms that are usually applied to punk rockers. Gordon Lindhurst said that the actions that I was taking in the bill had about them

“the whiff of anarchy and lawlessness”.—[

Official Report, Finance and Constitution Committee

, 13 March 2018; c 7.]

I have long aspired to have that said about my actions, and now it has happened. [

Interruption

.] My friend Roseanna Cunningham finds that remarkable, but that was said at stage 2—it is in the

Official Report

.

Tonight, the mild-mannered Mr Cameron used the phrase “horror show” along with the words “disgraceful”, “mockery”, “defiance” and “railroading” among many others. I really think that the Scottish Tories should calm down. They should also think about language, because they keep talking about a “good Brexit”. There is no such thing as a good Brexit. Perhaps we can mitigate the damage that Brexit will do. Through membership of the single market and the customs union, we might be able to maintain some essential links, but for our agriculture, health, higher education, hospitality and environmental sectors and for employees and ordinary citizens—although this is perhaps not the case for millionaires—there is no good Brexit.

It is not possible to dissemble on such matters or to fail to tell the truth. Brexit is the wrong thing for Scotland and for everyone who lives in Scotland. What I find hardest to take in all of this is that people who knew that up to and on 23 June 2016 have not forgotten that—they know that that is still true—but now they are saying the opposite for purely party-political reasons. They are going to damage Scotland absolutely irrevocably for a long period of time because they are doing things that they know are wrong. I ask members to let that sink in: they are doing things that they know are wrong.

What can we do? I hope that, together, as much as we can—I have worked hard over the past few weeks to achieve a consensus in this chamber—we will, first of all, defend the democratic rights of the people of this country, which means, at this stage, defending devolution. We should insist that the UK Government listens to and recognises the views of Scotland and the need for differentiation. We should find ways to preserve our membership of the single market and the customs union as the least bad option, and we should never give up on the obligation to observe the mandate of the 2016 referendum, in which Scotland rejected Brexit.

Those are things that we should do, and we could do, together. What we should not do is pretend that Brexit will be good for Scotland. It will not. We should not shrug resignedly and say, “Well, there’s nothing can be done,” because there are things that can be done. We should not connive with or enable those who wish to reverse devolution as a way of getting Brexit, because that is what we have seen over the past four weeks.

That is a big issue, because, up until the past four weeks, the Tories have tried to defend devolution and I have worked with some of them on that. However, their actions over the past four weeks—their continued actions and their rhetoric—are those of a party that has decided to roll back devolution and obstruct anything that defends devolution.