THIS week provided a brutally stark illustration of the profound divergence between UK and Scottish politics, yet I haven’t seen a single political commentator draw attention to it.
At Westminster the launch of the new draconian, counter-productive and ideologically fixated immigration proposals attracted salivating delight from a few hardliners but horrified rejection from those who actually contribute to the national good. Putting aside the self-harm done by highly respected Imperial College staff in permitting their premises to be used to launch such an appalling right-wing stunt, the whole thing confirmed beyond doubt that the current Tory Government’s vision for the future is a deeply unpleasant, chauvinistic, prejudiced one in which difference and diversity is not seen as a strength, but as something to be firmly and contemptuously rejected.
The effect of this deeply flawed approach will be negative both at home and abroad. Here it will not only severely damage business and communities. It will embolden racists in their increasingly frequent attacks upon people who may have lived alongside us and contributed to our wellbeing for years, but who simply have a different skin colour or who speak another language.
Abroad, it will confirm the view already held in many capitals that the UK is going through a regrettable period of isolation and xenophobia, which in turn will encourage many who might have come to live and work in the UK to take their considerable and much-needed talents elsewhere.
Many Scottish Tories, spurred on by yet more impending electoral failure, know how damaging these plans are and may even be flirting with supporting the Scottish Government’s modest proposals for a Scottish visa.
But welcome as that would be, the reality is that the full economic and social benefits of freedom of movement can only be recaptured by an independent Scotland becoming a member of the EU.
READ MORE: Twitter users react to anti-immigrant Question Time rant
The contrast lies, in both style and substance, with the final stage of the Scottish Government’s Franchise Bill, which took place on Thursday afternoon at Holyrood. This groundbreaking piece of legislation defines the right to vote in Scottish and local elections (the franchise for Westminster elections being set there) by residency, adding more than 50,000 non UK citizens to electoral rolls and confirming the right to vote already held by legally resident EU and EEA citizens.
Scotland will have, by the time of the 2021 election, one of the widest franchises in the world. That will confirm that we are an open, welcoming and inclusive nation. It will say to all who choose to make their home here that in Scotland, in the words of my dear friend the late Bashir Ahmed MSP, it doesn’t matter where you came from, it is where we are all going together that is important.
The bill was the first to require the positive vote of two thirds of MSPs to complete its passage – a so-called “super majority”. As the minister charged with responsibility for taking it through I was always aware that this was a tough challenge and I am very grateful to the progressive forces in Scottish politics for recognising that sometimes there is more that unites us than divides us. As a result we easily surpassed the 86-vote threshold.
Indeed the only votes against were 27 Scottish Tories, but I must pay tribute to most of them for their approach to the legislation. Only one – Liam Kerr, one of the new joint deputy leaders – chose the full-on distasteful backwoodsman Tory law and order rant as his means of argument, focusing on the other main provision in the bill which fulfilled the legal obligation on the Scottish Parliament to implement some form of prisoner voting.
In stark contrast Adam Tomkins this time presented an elegant and intellectually coherent case for not extending the franchise, and asked some very pertinent questions particularly about what constitutes citizenship in the modern world.
I disagree with his argument but such debate in the Scottish Parliament does it credit, whereas what we have seen from the Tories south of the Border this week shames them and the country they currently speak for.
Perhaps, on reflection, that is why the contrast has not been written up – because as we know, the prevailing UK political narrative relies on believing, and making others believe, that Scotland’s Parliament and politics is always inferior to that of our neighbours. Though yet again this week, the opposite was true, and demonstrably so.
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