Scotland has a proud history of welcoming immigrants but it doesn't align with this Union

John George Stant was an army ­volunteer. And his letters chart a five-year descent from ­idealistic young recruit, certain the war would soon be over because “the Hun” wouldn’t dare fight, through grinding despair at the mess and misery, to numb disbelief when an officer rode up and told him that the war was over.

I never met my grandfather (below). He survived the trenches only to be killed by a German bomb in the Second World War. It hit a shelter at the Clydebank shipyard where he worked. He and his mates had ­taken cover during the brutal Clydeside Blitz. His wee family back on the Dumbarton Road never ­recovered from his loss.

I am thinking a lot about them at the moment as I watch the terrible bombing carnage in Gaza. In ­Scotland during the war, our civilian population had an airforce to defend us and however awful the ­bombing, people had the sense that much of the world was rooting for us in our battle against a mighty and brutal enemy.

But what do the people of Gaza see but a world which turns its back as they are slaughtered – two million sitting targets in an open prison?

We had a debate before Christmas at ­Westminster about whether or not to call for an immediate ­ceasefire. The vote was, of course, symbolic. But the UK, as the former colonial power, has a special ­responsibility towards the Palestinians.

I had low ­expectations for Tory MPs. But I struggled to see how Labour could oppose the SNP in their ceasefire call. I hadn’t factored in the Labour leadership’s ­woeful ­inability to do anything other than cling to the ­Conservatives’ shadow.

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Even on this, they appeared to lack a basic moral compass with Sir Keir Starmer (below) defending the ­Israelis’ “right” to cut off water and power to Gaza. To their credit, 56 Labour MPs followed their ­conscience and voted to support a ceasefire. The Scottish ­Labour ­Party found themselves in the ludicrous ­position of ­opposing a ceasefire at Westminster whilst ­supporting one at Holyrood.

At the end of the Great War, my Grandpa found that his shipyard job had been given away. Rather than face unemployment he joined the army of ­occupation in post-war Germany. Billeted on a German family, he must have dreaded their reaction to him. But his letters record that they welcomed him, even leaving a present for him under their Christmas tree. I wish I knew who they were so that I could write and thank their descendants for their family’s kindness.

Whether to offer a welcome to strangers is another key dividing line at West­minster. The UK parties vie with one another to see who can sound most harsh about immigration and asylum. And 2023 was a year of especially cruel rhetoric and foolish policy. An offensive image has been recurring: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak standing at a “Stop the Boats” lectern.

My party – the SNP – have a very ­different take on immigration and ­asylum. Scotland has a long and proud history of welcoming immigrants. My mum always remembered a wee German girl who ­arrived at her Glasgow primary school in the late 1930s. “Be nice to Ruth,” the teacher said. “She’s escaped from an evil man in Germany.”

Ruth didn’t speak much English, but she showed my Mum a wonderful new invention she’d brought with her on the Kindertransport – a pen which didn’t need dipped into ink. It was called a Biro.

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Just as we once welcomed German Jews, I’m proud Scotland has recently ­welcomed Ukrainians, Iranians and Kurds who now call our beautiful part of the world their home. We need ­immigration. We want ­immigration.

And so, it frustrates me when I find ­myself ­debating other politicians on UK ­channels with the ­interrogating ­journalists ­somehow assuming we have a shared vision of a narrow, ­unwelcoming Brexit Britain. We don’t. And I try, ­whenever I can, to sound a different note.

At Westminster, I consistently speak up for refugees. Refugees like Elham. Two years ago, he was hiding in Kabul. He was 17 and is gay. The Taliban were ­searching for him to kill him. He wrote a diary about his life in hiding and ­published it online. He described his fear and ­feelings of claustrophobia as Taliban thugs ­hunted him door to door. No-one outwith a tight circle knew his ­whereabouts.

He had taught himself ­English and dreamed of escaping to the UK. But the UK Home ­Office offers no route for an Afghan asylum seeker appealing for sanctuary – even someone like Elham in imminent danger of death.

After months sheltered by distant ­family in Kabul, Elham managed to ­obtain an Afghan passport and, in heavy disguise, fled across the border and on to Islamabad. For almost a year, he tried ­desperately and fruitlessly to pursue his asylum claim with the UK Home ­Office. He described hiding out in baking ­temperatures in a rented slum room. He spent his time improving his English and studying for a Welsh university ­entrance exam.

I was incredibly moved by his diaries. And so, it seems, were thousands of ­others who heard me read out extracts from them during a Westminster debate about the UK’s awful asylum system. A group of well-wishers got together and agreed to pay for Elham’s plane ticket to London. They also agreed that, if he passed his university entrance exams, they’d cover his fees, accommodation, and living costs. He passed.

Elham visited me at the House of ­Commons last autumn and updated me on his story. He got into the UK not as a LGBT asylum seeker fleeing for his life – that route has been closed by the UK Government. He’s here as a paying ­student on a student visa. He dreams of a career as a foreign correspondent.

Elham’s story is one of determination and courage. He misses his mum and dad and he worries desperately about their safety living under the Taliban. But he says he feels as if he has come home to a country where gay people are able to ­express their love. As he puts it: “At long last I am free to be me.”

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In a previous life, I was a youth TV ­presenter. Occasional clips pop up on ­social media with me, dressed in my New Romantic finest, grilling a host of 1980s luminaries from Mary Whitehouse to the now-ennobled Ian Botham. So this year I leapt at the chance to speak to the Youth Parliament – sitting for one day only – at Westminster in November.

We’re often told that young people aren’t interested in politics. And it’s true, they can be cynical about political ­parties. But they care passionately about issues. And they care about one another. The contrast between a Westminster Chamber filled with MYPs (Members of the Youth Parliament) and the usual MPs was stark.

The young parliamentarians listened intently to other Members. They kept to time. And they applauded, rather than making those weird grunting noises many MPs make to denote approval.

None of this went unnoticed by the long-suffering House of Commons staff who’ve had to endure adult MP ­discourtesy and tantrums over the years. “I’d like to see this lot here every day ­instead,” one whispered to me.

Some of the kids still questioned whether politics achieved anything. And for them, I pointed to the incredible ­social ­progress we’d made against the odds. They knew about the Suffragettes and their struggles against an initially unyielding misogynistic establishment. But many hadn’t realised that it was only relatively recently that equality laws were passed which protected the rights of disabled people, and made racial ­discrimination illegal. And when I told them that when I was born, gay men could be arrested for holding hands in the street, there was an audible gasp.

That day’s debate was about food ­poverty. MYPs were outraged that some of their contemporaries went hungry in this, the fifth wealthiest state in the world.

When it was my turn to speak, the food poverty debate was over, and I knew there was one issue on everyone’s minds – the bombing of Gaza. And so I tackled the issue of integrity in politics. MPs – I pointed out – had recently seen their consciences tested over Gaza and the SNP ceasefire vote at Westminster.

Whilst most Labour MPs had knuckled under and done what they’d been told to do by their leader, one of my best friends in the place – a young English Labour MP – had defied Keir Starmer, and voted with the SNP ceasefire motion.

He was waiting to see what retribution he would face from his party whips for following his conscience. He is ­ambitious, I told the Chamber. But his conscience ­matters more to him than his career. That’s ­integrity.

The Commons Chamber rose in a standing ovation. And in the days ­following I received numerous e-mails and messages on social media from kids across these ­islands – thoughtful, detailed, sensitive messages showing empathy for the ­students’ contemporaries in both ­Israel and Palestine.

Not one message ­supported the Tory or Keir Starmer position of opposition to a ceasefire motion.

It was the most tragic of subjects. But I was proud that on Gaza the SNP were able – as they so often do – to lay out a distinctive Scottish position on world affairs at Westminster and beyond.

John Nicolson wants Scotland to have its own distinctive voice on the international stage. 

One of the (many) reasons I am so passionate about ­independence for Scotland is that I want us to be a ­distinctive and progressive voice ­internationally. We know how ­desperately the UK ­Government wants to ­silence us – the new Foreign Secretary has said so ­explicitly. But I often think of my mum, who died at the start of the Covid outbreak aged 95.

She’d have been on the floor with the Youth Parliamentarians cheering. With a father who’d served in one war and died in the next, nothing terrified her more than armed conflict. Passionately anti-Brexit she could never understand why the debate about our place in the world has become so provincial and insular. It’s not who we are.

Every day at Westminster ­reinforces my view that we are in the wrong ­Union. I want to see Scotland back in the ­European Union as soon as possible as an independent country ­embracing free movement. We know that the mood in Brussels is very different these days.

And Scotland will be warmly ­welcomed. It can’t come soon enough.