THE Scottish Greens co-leader won applause from the Chamber following his contribution to this afternoon’s debate on the Tory motion of no-confidence against Nicola Sturgeon.
The motion failed by 65 to 31, with 27 abstentions.
READ MORE: MSPs vote against motion of no confidence in Nicola Sturgeon
Last night Patrick Harvie said committee members who had leaked to the media and shown “contempt” for the process should consider their positions, and should not be candidates at the upcoming election.
In his speech during the debate this afternoon, Harvie repeated his call for the members to go and slammed their behaviour throughout the process.
Watch the MSP’s speech below.
"This situation began with an extremely serious issue. The mishandling of an investigation into sexual harassment allegations. And I honestly wish that everyone’s focus had remained on that issue.
"But what we’ve seen since then has been the deliberate, systematic and entirely cynical exploitation of that issue to suit motives which are all too apparent today.
"The media in Scotland and throughout the UK is awash with speculation about the Sturgeon/Salmond psychodrama. The coverage of this has been culminated by one question, what does this mean for the independence cause? When we should be asked what this means for the treatment of harassment or the position of those who want to call it out.
"Sadly we already know the answer to that question. Since the original committee leaks months ago through multiple instances of MSPs on that committee prejudging the evidence, announcing their political motivations to the world, and then to the disgraceful betrayal of trust, the original complainers over the last weekend. What should have been a serious inquiry has descended into farce.
"I believe this is the deliberate choice of those who have nothing to offer the people of Scotland. They looked at the devolved institutions and saw a high level of public trust in them and could not bear it. And they set about trying to drag everything down to their level. They will fail.
"And as a direct result of their actions the women who complained about sexual harassment in the first place had to put out a statement via Rape Crisis Scotland to complain about the violation of their trust.
"So here we are. On one hand, we have an independent report by someone with enough professionalism not to go hawking quotes to the press in advance, that clears the First Minister of any breach of the ministerial code.
"And in the other hand we have a report by a committee of this parliament whose members have prejudged the evidence, called for resignations before listening to it, betrayed the original complainers in the sexual harassment case and leaked their own conclusions to the media.
"Their actions are a betrayal of the trust we all placed in them when we appointed this committee. Calling out this behaviour does not, as Anas Sarwar suggests, reflect on the rest of our parliament. Our parliament is better than this. But they have clearly destroyed the credibility of their own work, advertised their partisan motivations for all to see. And far worse than that, they have sent a chilling message to anyone else considering complaining about harassment by powerful men.
"That if they do so, their lives can be turned into political theatre for months or even years.
"The only resignations I have any interest in debating today are those of the committee members who have so systematically broken our rules, abused the trust of witnesses and played childish games with the serious issue they were asked to examine.
"They are the ones who should be resigning today. And any political party that wants to come out of this episode with a shred of credibility will do whatever it takes to identify the culprits and ensure that they are not able to stand for re-election in six weeks’ time. They have shown contempt for the serious issue of sexual harassment. They have shown contempt for their witnesses. They have shown contempt for the rules of this parliament. And having failed in their attempt to drag Scottish politics down to their level, they should just go."
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