30 Nov 12
THE RT HON DR LIAM FOX MP SPEECH TO GLASGOW UNIVERSITY CONSERVATIVE & UNIONIST ASSOCIATION ST ANDREWS DAY DINNER
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This could be the penultimate St Andrews Day that we celebrate with Scotland as a part of the United Kingdom. In two years time, the referendum votes will have been cast and the will of the Scottish people will have been heard. As a Unionist, I will either be marking St Andrews Day with an acute sense of relief that our arguments for remaining within the Union have won through (probably with a large Malt), or I will be reflecting on the 300 and more years of shared history that has just been cast aside to satisfy the vanity of the nationalists.
The United Kingdom is not just a political and economic Union. It is a richly interwoven social union that has taken centuries to forge. There are very few families in our country who do not have relatives in some of -- and in some cases all of -- England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. London is Scotland’s 4th biggest city with more Scots living there than in Dundee or Inverness. And there are around 800,000 people who were born in Scotland but now live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
We are a United Kingdom of united peoples above all else.
For despite the picture that the separatists in the SNP want to paint, the United Kingdom is not an English construct. It is something that for hundreds of years we have built together, often shaping the world around us and exporting our ideas of law, human rights and democracy.
In many ways the United Kingdom was able to achieve a historic synergy. The intellectual vibrancy of the Scottish Enlightenment combined with the economic energy of the industrial revolution in England enabled our respective populations to achieve hitherto unimaginable global influence, still palpable and visible in many parts of the world today.
The role that Scotland and Scots were able to play in the influence of Empire, both material and intellectual, was only possible because of the tremendous foresight of our forefathers who recognised that we brought complementary skills and who gave birth to the union that is the United Kingdom today.
I am proud to have been born in Scotland. Proud of what Scotland has contributed to the United Kingdom. And I’m proud to say that Scotland must remain a part of that Union.
The early exchanges in the referendum campaign have been fascinating and, I think it fair to say, they’ve not gone too smoothly for the SNP. Polls have swung away from them and they’ve become unstitched over NATO, the legal position on their application to the EU, and increasingly their economic policies are being exposed for the fiction that they are.
The problem for the SNP is that they are not natural front-runners. They find it difficult to be positive; to come up with their own ideas – to govern. They are a party of opportunist opposers at their best when we – the evil hordes of Westminster imperialists – have given them something to grumble about. They are brilliant at firing up a sense of injustice, mistrust and rivalry that now threatens the great nation of Scotland and its place in the United Kingdom.
The Better Together Campaign has, quite rightly, focussed on the strengths and benefits of the Union and avoided any discussion of the feasibility of a separate Scotland. Arguing that we are better together stands in stark contrast to the angst and opportunism of the SNP.
But a campaign focussed simply on the arguments for, and against, the union is not enough. We have a responsibility to expose the SNP for the incompetent malcontents that they are. They will try and make this criticism synonymous with criticism of Scotland and its prospects as a separate country but we must make sure that that cynical tactic is exposed too.
Because the separation debate in their eyes is not about the people of Scotland; it is about Alex Salmond and the SNP.
As a Unionist I believe that the United Kingdom is better with Scotland and that Scotland is better in the United Kingdom. As a Conservative, I believe that Scottish politics has been distorted for too long by Alex Salmond and that 2014 presents the perfect opportunity to redraw the Scottish political landscape. The SNP are a left of centre party, so are Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats. Scotland needs a strong right of centre voice promoting the importance of a free market, meritocracy and an unobtrusive State.
This evening I want to look at three issues relating to the separation debate; NATO and Security, the EU and international alliances, and a constitutional quirk too.
Defence
NATO’s nuclear weapons are a very difficult hoop for the SNP rank and file to jump through. For once, I believe that Alex Salmond has done entirely the right thing in aligning Scotland with the alliance and in accepting that nuclear weapons will be the last resort in any defence of Scotland or her NATO allies – although the schism in his party can give little confidence that he can deliver.
To have left NATO after enjoying its protection for the last 60 years would have been like enjoying drinks off others in the pub all night long but then leaving just before it was your turn to buy a round.
But let’s make sure that people understand that NATO membership is ultimately about a nuclear guarantee to their sovereignty and that that guarantee is provided by the United Kingdom, the United States and France. If Scotland were separate, the UK government would have to make arrangements for the removal of Trident from Faslane but as a good neighbour and a new NATO member, Scotland would need to volunteer a basing solution that ensured continuity for the deterrent whilst new facilities were built elsewhere.
However, it would not just be the Trident submarines having to sail south if Scotland were to separate from the Union. 5,500 Scottish jobs are tied to shipbuilding for the Royal Navy and those contracts would undoubtedly head south too.
Let’s also be clear about the threats that a separate Scotland would face. “Live and let Live” might be the foreign policy of the SNP but Scotland sits on strategically important sea lanes; it is surrounded by oil fields and it is a prosperous, multi-cultural western democracy. The SNP cannot continue to play fast and loose with their defence policy and they cannot pretend that Vladimir Putin – and others - will not have seen the opportunities that would open up when one of the world’s most technologically advanced Navies and Air Forces stops protecting the strategically important airspace and sea lanes leading from the Northern Cape to the North Atlantic.
There will be Russian nuclear powered submarines cruising Scottish waters before they’ve finished decorating Salmond’s Presidential Palace.
So much is made of the Scotland’s intended relationship with Norway and Denmark but I know that they are concerned about the loss of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force from the High North and will be concerned with the SNP’s plan to be a part of NATO, contribute to UN tasks and to protect its own territorial waters and airspace with just a handful of Hawk jets, a frigate and some coastal patrol vessels.
Alex Salmond is a political opportunist not a Commander-in-Chief and we must make sure that the people of Scotland are aware of just how militarily exposed they might be.
EU
It was – shall we say? – a little awkward for Alex Salmond when Nicola Sturgeon eventually revealed that the SNP had never had any legal advice that backed up their assertion that membership of the European Union would be an automatic right on secession from the UK.
My colleague, Hugo Swire, spoke in Parliament on this last week, highlighting that international precedent is that a new state starts afresh and has to negotiate membership to whatever international organisations it wishes to join. In those negotiations the new country cannot assume that they will enjoy the same caveats, exclusions and privileges enjoyed prior to secession. To be more specific, no country has joined the EU since 1992 without having to accept membership of the Schengen Agreement or membership of the single currency.
The SNP believe they can exempt themselves from this but on what grounds? What will that say to Macedonia, Iceland, Serbia, Montenegro and Turkey who would all consider themselves to be ahead of Scotland in the queue for membership and who do not expect to be able to negotiate such advantageous exceptions?
The Spanish Government were pretty clear in their opposition to the SNP’s self-selection for EU membership and that was before the election results in Catalonia last weekend. If Madrid were hardly vague on the subject beforehand, Alex Salmond can look forward to a further hardening of the Spanish Government’s position now.
I’m not absolutely sure why anyone would want to join the EU in its current form and perhaps Alex Salmond’s prevarication on the matter was a deliberate ploy to ultimately avoid membership altogether. Who knows? – it could even be another area on which we agree!
But there is a rather sinister argument that for those who support a federal Europe, an EU of regions and small nations is preferable to the awkward larger states trying to throw their weight around in the name of their electorates. For those who dream of ever closer union, small countries seeking strength through unity are the perfect building block.
My concern is that the SNP’s argument for separation is that they want the Scottish people to be able to govern themselves from Edinburgh and I’m not sure that enthusiastic membership of the EU achieves that. Indeed, the polls suggest that the Scottish people are no more enthusiastic about EU membership than the rest of the UK.
Once again, the SNP are exposed for chasing their own vision of Scotland rather than that held by the Scottish people.
Scotland, as part of the UK, has benefitted from exemption from the Euro and the Schengen Zone; a choice over new laws in justice and home affairs; and enjoys a budget rebate too. If more decision making power in Holyrood is the aim, then there is a good argument for remaining part of the UK so that Scotland benefits from whatever renegotiated relationship the UK can achieve.
But it is not just EU membership that the Scottish electorate must consider. A separate Scotland would not qualify for the G8 or the G20. It would not have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council either. “So what?” the SNP will cry but we must not let them spin these great international organisations into irrelevance. Influence at this level matters and I would argue that the Scottish people are better being in those clubs than they are being out of them.
Orkney & Shetland
Finally, I want to talk briefly about Orkney and the Shetland Islands.
I know that the people of the Northern Isles are as frustrated with rule from Scotland’s Central Belt as the SNP are frustrated with rule from London. But David Cameron has acknowledged the mandate of the Scottish Government to call for a referendum and given Alex Salmond the opportunity to find out whether his frustrations are really shared by the majority of the Scottish people.
How sad if these champions of the under-dog, “righters” of all London’s wrongs and campaigners against injustice everywhere found themselves unable to extend the same courtesy to the islanders of Orkney and Shetland. Nicola Sturgeon said they’d get no referendum because they’re “not a nation” – I wonder what her reaction would have been if anyone in London had dared say anything so patronising about Scotland?
Orkney and Shetland had an opt out in the referendum of 1979 and I personally believe that we should be offering that again in 2014. Edinburgh is almost as distant to them as London and it may be that the benefits of the Union are clearer once you escape the clutches of the SNP’s spin machine.
Conclusion
On Defence and Europe the SNP are in a muddle – their policies are ill conceived and lack any basis in treaty or law. If there were time, I know we could speak this evening about many other areas in which their policies are equally lacking.
Orkney and Shetland are a test of just how seriously the SNP believe in the right to self-determination and in the power of their own arguments.
It is time to expose the weaknesses in their policies and not to be put off by the accusation of “Scotland bashing” that always follows.
Criticism of the SNP is not criticism of Scotland – It is part of a political debate that must happen over the next two years so that by 2014 the SNP are shown to be the ‘opportunist opposers’ that they are.
They will pack the room at every debate, their activists will flood the online comment page below every critical article and there will probably be free screenings of Braveheart in every Scottish town on the eve of the referendum. This will be a long campaign that will draw on the emotions of all Scots – but this is not Alex Salmond’s personal fiefdom it is our country; we are proud of it; and we want the very best for it.
The United Kingdom has been a shining light in the world for centuries. A great democracy and a great industrial power that changed the face of the world and continues to play a leading role today. Scotland and Scots have been a central part in all of that and will be an important part in our great future together too.
So I’ll ask you all to join me in a toast to St Andrew confident that ours is a Union worth defending. We have been, we are, and we will always be stronger and better together.
St. Andrew.