My
speech features a short intervention from my old pal Margo MacDonald.
It should be noted that Margo and I were sitting as Independents: I
had been expelled by the SNP and Margo was forced-out of the party
under the disastrous 'leadership' of devolutionist John Swinney.
Regarding my comment in the last sentence, I never for one moment thought we
would still be waiting 16-years-later.
-----------------------------
Scottish
Parliament Official Report
March
22 2007
Debate
on Scottish Executive Motion 'Scotland in the United Kingdom'
Campbell
Martin (Ind):
The
Minister for Parliamentary Business said that she - I think she meant
the Labour Party - came to the Parliament to manage devolution. Well,
I did not come here to manage devolution, which partly explains why I
now sit as an Independent.
Personally,
I came here to do my best for the people of Scotland. I do not think
we can achieve the best for the people of Scotland in a devolved,
constrained, limited Parliament.
Margaret
Curran (Minister for Parliamentary Business):
Will
the member take an intervention?
Campbell
Martin:
No
thanks. We have had three-hundred years of apologists for the British
Union. We don't need to hear any more.
The
people of Scotland have always known their place within the Union,
because we have always been told our place within the Union. The
Scots' role has been as a labour-force and, in times of war,
cannon-fodder.
It
is not just British political parties or the British establishment
that have kept Scotland in its place within the Union; the
north-British subsections of the British Labour Party and the other
Unionist parties, members of which have spoken in this debate, have
conspired to tell the people of Scotland that we are too wee, too
poor and too stupid to govern ourselves. That is the reality of
Scotland within the United Kingdom.
It
is not normal for one nation to be governed by another. However, that
is the situation we have today. This is only a devolved Parliament,
which is answerable to the Westminster Parliament. This Parliament is
totally subservient to the Parliament in London.
We
need independence because only with independence can we deal with the
bread-and-butter issues that affect Scots every day of their lives.
The Unionist parties have told us they want the election to be about
the bread-and-butter issues, not about constitutional change. I argue
that we need constitutional change to give us the full powers and
full resources we require to deal with the problems - the
bread-and-butter issues - affecting Scots today. Without the powers
that come only with independence, we will continue to target
initiatives at symptoms, rather than at the actual problems.
We
know that Unionist political parties do not always tell the truth
when they are talking about the constitution and independence. Back
when the constitutional reality was a Scotland governed directly from
London, we were told that devolution would be a leap in the dark and
probably would be the end of civilisation as we knew it. That,
clearly, was not true. Now we are told that, if we move to
independence, it will be a leap in the dark and probably the end of
civilisation as we know it. That, too, is untrue. Then again, as I
said, Unionist parties have a history of not telling the truth.
Charlie
Gordon referred to the sweeping-to-power of the Wilson Government in
the mid-1970s and how great that was. I remember that, too. I was a
teenager in the mid-1970s, and I remember being told by the then
Labour Government that Scotland was an economic basket-case and that
we couldn't stand on our own two feet and govern ourselves.
Margo
MacDonald (Ind):
Will
Campbell give way?
Campbell
Martin:
Of
course.
Margo
MacDonald:
I
was not at school in the mid-1970s; I was in Westminster. I was told,
privately, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer a few years later that
Scotland was not, in fact, an economic basket-case; that my case was
watertight, but that he would oppose me every inch of the way. That
was Denis Healey.
Campbell
Martin:
Yet
Denis Healey was the very man who said, publicly, that we were an
economic basket-case and could not stand on our own two feet. As I
said, unionist politicians and political parties do not always tell
the truth when they are talking about the constitution.
Dr
Gavin McCrone supplied a report to the Labour Government at that
time. The Labour Government had told us that Scotland was an economic
basket-case and that we were too wee, too poor and too stupid, but,
at the same time, McCrone was telling them that Scotland could
quickly become one of Europe's strongest economies with
embarrassingly large surpluses. McCrone told the Labour Government
that oil revenue would: "transform Scotland into a country with
a substantial and chronic surplus." I imagine, from a Unionist
perspective, such Scottish wealth would result from a 'plague' of
oil.
So,
British Unionist parties have a track record of not telling the
truth. The people of Scotland would vote for independence if Unionist
politicians did not lie to them. Those politicians know they are
lying because they are intelligent people; well, relatively
intelligent people.
Why
is Scotland - alone among all the nations in the world - unable to
stand on its own two feet or to manage its affairs better in its
people's interests? Why do Unionist political parties have to do
Scotland down and scare the people of Scotland away from their
democratic right to retake their independence?
Roll
on the day - it is coming, and members know it - when the people of
Scotland retake their independence for the benefit of all the people
of Scotland.
----------------------
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