Stands Scotland where it did? Scotland's journey back to statehood

behalf of cardiff university's wales governance center it's a real pleasure to welcome you to this event it's a particular pleasure to welcome john a cherry mp to give our wells governance center annual lecture this year joanna is mp for edinburgh southwest and she was elected first in 2015 prior to becoming an mp she had a distinguished legal career in scotland as an advocate she had done considerable work for the scottish government first as a junior council then as an advocate deputy and senior advocate deputy in 2009 she was appointed queen's council she set up the lawyers for yes group which campaigned for independence in the 2014 scottish independence referendum um and following that in february 2015 she was adopted as the candidate for the westminster parliamentary seat which she now holds she's the shadow snp spokesperson for home affairs and justice and at a time when there's a certain amount of political commentary about um the way in which some lawyers skills don't necessarily translate into political debate i think she's made a particular virtue of bringing together her skills as a lawyer and her skills as a politician most famously she challenged the five-week progression of parliament by boris johnson uh through the scottish courts her case cherry versus advocate general for scotland and ended up then together with a case brought in england in the supreme court and resulted in the quashing of that prorogation um and at a time now when uh the uk government's internal market bill which has been particularly controversial for its um for its uh threats to violate intellect international law to break international law it also has very substantial implications for devolution um and uh we're now at a moment where the house of lords has essentially filleted the bill of its devolution elements as well as challenging the irish protocol northern irish protocol elements i think joanna's skills when that bill comes back to the commons will be put on particular display so with no further ado uh aside from reminding people that if you want to tweet about this event you can do so using the hashtag cherrywgc i'd like now to hand over to joanna for her lecture noswortha and thank you dan for that very generous introduction and thank you for inviting me to give this lecture my pleasure being asked to give this lecture has been tempered slightly by not getting the added bonus of a visit to cardiff but i hope that's something that can be addressed when the pandemic is over or at least under control and it's great to be speaking at the end of a week where finally there's light at the end of the tunnel thanks to the vaccines my last trip um to wales the stress that i'm standing in edinburgh just now my last trip to wales was to give the fraternal address at the applied camry spring conference in 2018 and i greatly enjoyed it and the warmth and hospitality of my welcome my only regret was that i was shamed by liz savile roberts announcing to the whole conference that on the road trip up from london i and her other scottish passenger had marred her usual healthy living lifestyle by introducing her to the delights of greg's pasties at one of the service station stops anyway it's a great honor to be asked to give this speech and since my election as an mp in 2015 i've benefited greatly from the work of the centre and it's been my pleasure to share platforms and select committee evidence sessions with professors richard wynn jones laura mcallister and joe hunt and it's been my particular pleasure to renew my acquaintance with professor daniel wincott whom i first met a long time ago when we were teenagers and he was dating my best friend now although wales voted to leave and scotland voted to remain a commonality of interest in defending our economies and our devolved settlements has brought us closer together since the brexit referendum but it's also accelerated the pressure for constitutional change in both our nations and as the united kingdom stands on the verge of leaving the customs union and the single market we're still unclear about the nature of the future relationship with the european union the trump era has come to an end in america and biden will be a very different president what happens to the northern irish protocol and the good friday agreement could well determine whether or not biden's administration will entertain a trade deal with the united kingdom and many democrats take the view that the united kingdom government is the last outpost of the trump project seen from scotland it certainly feels that way the post-brexit landscape has accentuated our sense of political alienation from the concerns and the projects of westminster and so scotland most certainly does not stand where she did she is not so much at a crossroads as on a highway to independence a couple of exits have been missed but the indicator is now on and i'm confident that scotland will take the next exit the destination is not separatism nor secession but a resumption of the statute which was relinquished in 1707. so why have things changed so much on the 18th of september 2014 55 of those who voted in the independence referendum voted to remain part of the united kingdom during the last days of the referendum the better together campaign suffered an almighty panic during which even her majesty the queen was pressed into service to defend the union ten days before the vote a sensational yougov poll put support for independence at 52 it was the first time independence had been in the lead and it caused some consternation two days before the referendum the leaders of the three main united kingdom political parties david cameron ed miliband and nick clegg personally pledged that a no vote would result in the delivery the swift delivery of extensive new powers for the scottish parliament their pledge appeared as a vow on the front page of scotland's best-selling daily tabloid this is solemn it said you can trust us it's an amusing footnote to this episode that four years later the former editor who plans that famous front page announced his support for independence and is now the chief press officer for the scottish national party at hollywood but back in 2014 he played an important role in ensuring a vote for the status quo on the understanding that there would be significantly more powers for hollywood but now just over six years later the very foundation of the devolved settlement between london and edinburgh is under threat from the internal market bill and 14 consecutive opinion polls have put support for independence at 52 or over one poll which sold support at 58 highlighted majority support amongst both men and women people in all social class groups and every age group under the age of 65. even the staunchly unionist times newspaper has recognized in a recent editorial that these successive polls have shown a majority of scots in favor of an early referendum and that they cannot be ignored so scotland most certainly does not stand where she stood in 2014 so what accounts for this increase in the support for independence well the well-respected pollster sir john curtis has concluded that the uk government's pursuit of brexit has undermined scottish confidence in the union and led to increased support for independence his analysis shows that prior to the coronavirus the growth and support for independence occurred among those who were pro-the european union and he's also found that voters in scotland are now largely pessimistic about the consequences of brexit but relatively optimistic about what independence would bring and that's a big difference according to professor curtis as at 31st january brexit day support for independence in scotland had edged up to about 50 but the further rise in support since then has been as strong among leave supporters as it has been amongst remain supporters and it's come about as result as a result of public confidence in the scottish government's handling of the coronavirus crisis the polls have shown that the scottish public think the edinburgh government and nicola sturgeon in particular have handled the pandemic well they take the opposite view in relation to the uk government and boris johnson's handling of the pandemic another very well-respected poster mark diffley broadly agrees with professor curtis's analysis and he says that while brexit provided the initial impetus for the growth and support for independence he goes on to say and i quote the pandemic has given voters a daily reminder that the scottish government has the power to make decisions about the most important issues of the day decisions that can diverge from the rest of the united kingdom government and that appears to have resonated with many voters both in their views of the pandemic handling and for some their views on independence so those are the views of the pollsters here are my thoughts in a major speech to the middle temple earlier this month sir john major said that the core change in the new britain which is currently being forged is brexit albeit for a time it's been hidden behind the covert crisis and i agree with sir john major's analysis in that respect the united kingdom that voters in the independence referendum of 2014 voted to remain part of no longer exists the socialist federalist uk promised to scots by the unionist left seems even further away than it did six years ago and labour have been all but wiped out in scotland as a meaningful political force at last year's general election the labour party suffered their worst defeat in in the uk as a whole for decades and it's hard to see how even a successfully start a successful starmer led labour party can gain back the ground it lost in just one election and that's not just my view it's the view of many friends in the labour party so after 10 years of what were hamstrung minority tory governments we're now looking at 10 years of majority government from a tory party which has espoused such an extreme position that it no longer has room for the likes of ken clark or dominic grieve that boris johnson would be resident in number 10 seemed even more unlikely than brexit during the 2014 independence referendum and those of us who predicted these possibilities were scoffed at now the victory of boris johnson and his huge majority were made in england in english constituencies in scotland the scottish national party rides high in the polls and we keep winning elections rather emphatically whilst one should never take anything for granted in politics we look set to do so again next year and if we do next year we'll win that election on a clear mandate to hold a second independence referendum in scotland there is significant unfinished business from the first independence referendum that cross-party pledge to create a different form of devolution made in those last desperate days of the campaign has never been delivered for all the promises of federalism or divo max the advent of a uk government committed to delivering either is very far away the present uk government are instead dedicated to undermining the devolved settlement rather than strengthening and improving it and what boris johnson said about devolution being a disaster and tony blair's biggest mistake was really simply the verbal acknowledgement of the hostility shown towards the developed settlements in the internal market bill and my colleagues in the scottish government have looked on in in recent years uh since the brexit referendum looked at with envy while the concerns of the irish government are placed centre stage in brussels but scotland is ignored or derided at westminster and i think it's very instructive just to review the course of events since scotland voted no in september 2014. this is just a plotted history i can't possibly cover everything but in may 2015 it's now history that scotland elected 56 scottish national party mps out of a total possible possible total of 59 yet when that vow of more powers for the scottish parliament came to be enacted in the scotland bill not one single amendment proposed by those scottish national party mps was accepted to the bill then came the brexit vote in june 2016. while it was won by a small margin across the united kingdom as a whole scotland voted by 62 to remain and northern ireland by 55 yet in drawing up her negotiating red lines theresa may gave no consideration to the fact that two out of the four constituent nations of the united kingdom had voted to remain there was no coalition building no reaching out no acknowledgement of what had happened in scotland and northern ireland and in fact in december 2016 when the scottish government produced a policy paper scotland's place in europe putting forward the idea of a differentiated deal for scotland or a compromise for the whole of the uk whilst it was well received favorably received by michelle barney it was completely ignored by the uk government who went on to cut the scottish government out of the brexit negotiations completely and to take just one small example the scottish government has been completely excluded from participating in negotiations regarding the future trade relationship despite massive implications for our expanding food and drink industry and for the fishing industry as is well known the scottish parliament voted with the cross party support of everyone apart from the conservatives and one liberal democrat to withhold consent to the european union withdrawal bill but that too was ignored and the sewell convention which provides that westminster will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the scottish parliament has been repeatedly ignored throughout the brexit process and thanks to the decision of the united kingdom supreme court in the first miller case we now know that the convention has no legal force to protect the devolved settlement despite its entrenchment in the scotland act of 2016. then when the scottish parliament passed its own legal continuity bill to deal with the consequences of brexit for devolved powers it was challenged by the british government in the uk supreme court and while the hearing of the case was pending the tories retrospectively changed the law in the house of lords by amending the withdrawal bill to render large parts of the continuity bill ultravioles when those amendments came back from the lords to the commons scottish mps got 19 minutes in which to consider them and the whole of the 19 minutes was taken up by the conservative government minister and it's important to remember that that was what prompted the snp's famous walk out of the commons during prime minister's questions in june 2018. matters moved on and of course the withdrawal from the european union proceeded in january of this year after boris johnson's election victory but so far scotland was concerned once more we elected a majority of scottish national party mps this time 48 out of 59 but eu withdrawal went ahead despite the opposition of those snp mps and indeed despite the opposition of all but six of scotland's 59 mps and now we face the undermining of the devolved settlement in the internal market bill which professor wincott spoke about in in his introduction and as he said it has been filleted in the lords but those amendments have yet to come back to the commons and i don't see the conservatives tolerating that filiting and i see a conservative majority is likely overcoming it in the comments but as daniel said as well as breaking international law the powers which the uk governments seek to give themselves in that bill constitute an unprecedented threat to the powers of the scottish parliament it runs a coaching horses through the devolution settlement which scots voted for by an overwhelming majority in 1997. in october of this year we marked the 20th anniversary of the death of donald dure he was scotland's first fm under devolution and the architect of the scheme of devolution set out in the scotland act of 1998 if not specifically reserved then a power is devolved in terms of that act but the internal market bill introduces a new principle into the devolution settlement by providing broad cross-cutting powers to allow uk ministers to enforce internal market provisions across devolved areas clause 50 reserves state aid to westminster after a dispute as to whether it was reserved or devolved and clause 48 gives uk ministers wide powers to spend in devolved fields challenging the previous assumption that they would spend only in reserved fields and with a few exceptions financial transfers to the devolved administrations would go through the block allocation governed by the barnet formula for that analysis i'm indebted to professor michael keating and he gave evidence to the scottish affairs select committee last week and he he said this of the internal market bill devolved provisions when we were in the european union the scottish parliament was subject to the very general provision that it must legislate within european law that was a broad transversal principle that applied to everything the internal market bill attempts to introduce that principle into uk law but without all the safeguards that exist in the european arrangement yes in the eu there is a broad provision that cuts across all kinds of fields but it's subject to proportionality subsidiarity a community method of making policy qualified majority voting and the jurisdiction of the european court of justice none of that is present here this to my mind represents a major constitutional change end quotes and so there we have the uh estimation of a not a politician but an expert witness now my colleague in the scottish government mike russell has described the internal market bill as a very subtle power grab but a power grab it is holyrood is not getting any new powers but westminster is getting sole control over state aid and in order to enforce the internal market united kingdom ministers are getting an explicit power to cut across decision making by the scottish parliament in a whole range of devolved areas from education to building regulations and i think what we are seeing here is a rebalancing of the constitutional settlement so far as devolution is concerned the clear delineation of donald dure's great scheme will go and that's a very significant change some would say an undermining of the devolved settlement which 75 of people in scotland voted for across party lines in 1997 but it certainly flies in the face of the promise of greater powers which was made at the end of the referendum campaign and in which people like michael golf doubled down during the brexit referendum campaign it really matters not to the british constitution at this stage that on 7th october all parties in the scottish gov scottish parliament apart from the conservatives voted to withhold legislative consent to the internal market bill we know that the sewell convention isn't worth the paper it was written on and so looking to these events the history of what's happened since brexit and the internal market bill i think the brexit process has told scottish voters a lot about the reality of devolution it's confirmed if it were ever in doubt that power devolved is power retained and that the united kingdom is not the union of equals we were told about during the 2014 referendum but a unitary state in which devolved power can be taken back to westminster by executive fiat when it suits the executive to do that and we also know in scotland contrary to what we were told in 2014 scotland does not lead the united kingdom but must rather follow england where england wishes to go whether we like it or not now at a conference in london a couple of years ago i asked the former tashik of the republic of ireland john brewton what he thought of scotland's treatment during the brexit process and he said that he felt scotland was marginalized within the uk and that that sort of marginalization would not happen in the european union and if the european union was taking a decision as drastic as brexit and it had only four nations in it all four nations would need to agree but in the united kingdom it doesn't matter what scotland says it doesn't matter what northern ireland says they can always be overridden by the english vote that's not an anti-english comment it's a comment on the constitution of the united kingdom if scotland was a member if if scotland were a member state of the european union even though we are a country of only 5.5 million people we would have the same veto as ireland has over a major decision such as brexit as it and in the same way as the bigger countries have and when looked at that way the european union seems rather a more attractive future for scotland than the united kingdom now it's true of course and i don't need to tell a welsh audience this it's true of course that the cavalier attitude of the uk government towards devolution has been experienced not just in scotland in northern ireland but also in wales and for a long time in northern ireland the voice of the pro-european union majority was really without expression at westminster and stormont while stormont wasn't sitting and the attitude of the tories was very much one of ignorance or insouciance towards the good friday agreement in the meantime the scottish and welsh governments have worked closely together to try and defend the interests of our devolved parliaments but we have to be honest to say that we've not had much success in doing that despite strenuous efforts and in the north of england the intransigence of westminster has also been experienced during the row over lockdown and furlough support and andy burnham the mayor of greater manchester has said that he was worried by the prime minister's comments on devolution and that we live in a very london-centric country which is why it's a divided country now all of this commentary has prompted the usual suspects to start talking about federalism again and i want to be very clear that i have nothing against federalism i think federalism works really well in canada for example where the provinces were in the room for the negotiations over the sita trade agreement and the provinces run their own immigration programmes what scotland would give to be in that position within the uk but the problem as i see it is that although federalism is always discussed when support for scottish independence is on the rise i see little appetite for federalism across the uk and whereas scottish independence is a matter for the scots by which i mean people living in scotland federalizing the uk is a project which requires support across the four nations and only the liberal democrats have any sort of meaningful commitment to federalism as a policy and they are far from power at present recently one of my predecessors as an mp for the seat in which i currently stand malcolm rifkind um reminded us that in 1975 he said that devolution should be a step towards federalism but he when in office as scottish secretary didn't progress the case for either devolution or federalism at all in fact quite the reverse he was part of a tory administration that turned its back resolutely on the desire for devolution in scotland in the 80s and the early 90s and his recent discovery of the merits or rediscovery of the merits of an idea he flirted with 45 years ago in my opinion lacks credibility and i have to say that i didn't think that professor james mitchell was being overly harsh when he said that unless sir malcolm converts his party and provides a slogan and us converts his party and provides a scheme rather than a slogan on federalism his contribution should be treated with what professor mitchell described as contempt now malcolm rivkind is not the only leading scottish politician of yesteryear who periodically flirts with the idea of federalism in august 2014 at an event at the edinburgh book festival gordon brown said that talks on extending devolution should begin the day after the referendum if the north side won and that within two years the united kingdom would be a federal state during that giddy summer he also promised that labour proposals would move the uk as close to federalism as could happen in a country where 85 percent of it is comprised of one nation but of course none of this has come to pass and there's good reason for the cynicism on the nationalists left in scotland because federalism has been promised many times but not delivered and it won't be delivered now because there's no one in the british government who wants federalism their constitutional direction of travel is the other way furthermore i think ben ray of offsource direct made a very important point when he wrote earlier this week that the increased desire for independence in scotland is not just an expression of national identity but also and perhaps more importantly the expression of a desire to relocate power from london and to use that power differently everyone wants to build back better after the pandemic but scotland needs to do so to our own design federalism wouldn't allow scotland to develop the sort of different economic direction that the independence movement longs for federalism wouldn't allow scotland to get rid of trident one of the central planks of snp policy and federalism would not allow scotland to rejoin the european union and in relation to rejoining the european union there is some urgency the regulatory divergence which the uk government seems determined to impose upon scotland could make rejoining the eu a more onerous process and that's why despite the periodic talk of federalism the focus of the debate in scotland is about independence and a second independence referendum the british government are pressing ahead with their constitutional priorities regardless of the pandemic and regardless of the economic fallout from the pandemic and whilst the first minister of scotland and her government have rightly had their primary focus on the covert crisis scotland cannot afford not to counter the constitutional agenda of the british government now recently gordon brown chose to echo the words of teresa may by saying now is not the time the trouble is that for scotland british politicians telling us now not now tends to mean not ever and to those who parrot the words of our former and current first ministers where they said that the last referendum was a once in a generation vote i would say to them that that was then and this is now besides what constitutes a generation in political terms i'm a member of generation x born between 1965 and 1980 the next generation after that is the millennials born between 81 and 96 these are time spans of only 15 years with respect to devolution 18 years passed between the 79 and 97 referendums so that was rather longer than a generation but we should remember that until labour won the 1997 general election scotland's renewed desire for devolution had been ignored by the conservative party in power for more than a decade and i think that's something that we in the nationalist movement need to bear in mind when people say that we don't need a plan b and i'm coming to that in a moment but just sticking with this idea that there should only be an independence a referendum once in a generation you could argue that the political events of the past six years have been more tumultuous than we normally experience in a generation in the years since 2014 we've lived through a number of political generations the days of cameron and clegg feel like ancient history theresa may is now in the political wilderness together with the host of well-respected conservatives who now find themselves politically homeless the liberal democrats who were part of the government up until 2015 are now reduced to a rump in parliament with their last but one leader ousted at the general election the corbyn era has come and gone and britain has left the european union these events are considerably more than we normally experience in a generation now on the issue of sovereignty and irish unity the northern ireland act of 1998 provides that the northern ireland secretary shall not allow a second border poll any earlier than seven years before the previous poll now even allowing for the very different context in northern ireland if seven years between referendums to leave the united kingdom is acceptable for northern ireland why not for scotland the bottom line surely must be that if the party or parties who have a clear commitment to a second independence referendum in their manifestos if they win the scottish election election next year then it would really be a trumpian denial of democracy for there not to be a second independence referendum however if ever any united kingdom leader were capable of trumpian behavior then it's boris johnson so i believe it makes sense for my party to think about what we should do in the event that the prime minister refuses to agree the means by which a second independence referendum can be held as david cameron did with alex salmond in the edinburgh agreement of 2012. at that time it was agreed that the power to hold a referendum would be transferred to the scottish parliament under section 30 of the scotland act a recent poll suggests that two-thirds of voters want a fallback strategy to secure a second independence vote if the section 30 order is refused this time round but there are some in my party who are very reluctant to contemplate the options in such a scenario they believe that to do so might detract from the pressure on the prime minister to do the right thing to them i say boris johnson is not renowned for doing the right thing particularly when it comes to scotland i understand the argument that his refusal to grant a section 30 order is unsustainable but whether that argument is right remains to be seen what worries me is if that we are waiting on goodwill and largesse from boris johnson it could be a very long wait no conservative and unionist prime minister wants to be the one on whose watch scotland was lost and it would be even more ignominious for boris johnson because he is the author of the catalyst for independence and that is brexit so for now it's a comforting thought that his position is unsustainable but it's a hope at best and it's my belief that that hope should not prevent my party from looking at what leverage we have in the meantime it should also be remembered that the capitulation of david cameron and the signing of the edinburgh agreement in 2012 came after protracted discussions it was secured as a result of pressure that was irresistible not just because of the mandate the scottish national party won in 2011 but also because of the robust robust leadership and statecraft of the salmon government some of the present reluctance to discuss alternative strategies comes from the absolutely correct view that the means by which independence is secured must be both democratic and legitimate in order that the outcome is internationally recognized i agree with that and i would add that a democratic and legitimate process is also necessary to bring the british government to the negotiating table after the vote is won but i think we may see a rather different attitude towards scottish independence internationally from what we saw in 2014 a joint paper published earlier this week by the scottish centre for european relations and the conrad adenira stiftoon looked at eu views of the united kingdom post brexit and the paper identifies a general expectation that the european union the european union will be neutral in any future scottish independence referendum partly because of the state of eu uk relations which is not very good at the moment but also because the united kingdom is now a third country and the pro-eu sentiment in scotland has been noted they go on to say that the common view is that provided scotland becomes independent in a legally and constitutionally valid way with agreement between london and edinburgh scotland could have a normal accession process to the european union although there is a high alertness to spanish said sensitivities but of course scotland is not catalonia and the united kingdom is not spain there is nothing in the unwritten british constitution which prohibits scotland from becoming independent indeed on the contrary the british constitution has already shown that it is flexible enough to permit an independence referendum for scotland prior to the advent of devolution it was thought that a simple majority of pro-independent scottish mps would be sufficient to open negotiations on independence and i think that is why some in my party have suggested using a scottish election as a plebiscite if a section 30 order continues to be refused and i think this suggestion raises the question of whether we should be so wedded to the idea of a referendum to deliver independence earlier this year before lockdown i attended a very entertaining lecture at the london school of economics entitled unions and their breakups the united kingdom's attempted secession from the european union and its possible outcomes it was delivered by brendan o'leary the larger professor of political science at the university of pennsylvania and his focus was on the domestic constitutional consequences of the united kingdom's secession from the european union and i should just say that he defines secession as formal withdrawal from a central authority now i was very interested to hear him say that most secessionist movements that have been successful have done so without any central role for a referendum but the reality is that in scotland we did have a referendum in 2014 and the result was no so we need to demonstrate that there has been a change of opinion i asked professor o'leary what he thought the scottish national party should do and he said that he thought it would be very hard for the snp to depart from its formal commitment to the idea that a referendum will be the mechanism after we've won a majority of pro-independence mps in the scottish parliament but i i think he makes a very fair point but i would wish to emphasize that we should not assume that the only way a legitimate referendum can occur is if boris johnson agrees to it in 2012 before the edinburgh agreement was signed seven legal academics including three distinguished professors published a paper challenging the view that only westminster has the legal authority to sanction an independence referendum and again recently one of the authors professor eileen mccarg and her senior colleague at chris mccorkandale have re reaffirmed this view and they said and i quote although it's frequently asserted that a referendum on independence falls out with devolved competence that issue has never been conclusively settled my friend agent o'neill the leading qc who won the article 50 revocation and prorogation cases has produced a detailed opinion setting out the argument that hollywood has the power to legislate to hold a referendum on the question of independence he's advancing this argument in a case currently before the court of session in edinburgh and brought by a gentleman called martin keating's against the advocate general for scotland and the lord advocate now on brexit day earlier this year my party leader scotland's first minister nicola sturgeon gave a speech in which she considered this issue and she said and i quote the issue of whether the specific constitutional reservation in the scotland act puts any form of independence referendum outside the powers of the scottish parliament or instead leaves open scope for a non-binding consultant to vote has never been tested in court that means it cannot be said definitively that it would not be legal but equally it cannot be described as being beyond legal doubt if a proposal for a referendum on that basis was brought forward it would be challenged in court if a court ruled that it was legal it wouldn't be a wildcat referendum as our opponents like to brand it it would be within the power of the scottish parliament should the uk government continue to deny scotland's right to choose we may reach the point where this issue does have to be tested and she continued i am not ruling that out but i also have to be frank the outcome would be uncertain there would be no guarantees it could move us forward particularly it could set us back so my judgment at this stage is that we should use our energies differently and she went on to announce a constitutional convention and policy papers neither of which have come to pass sadly because of the pandemic but it's my view that if the pro-independence referendum parties in scotland and that's not just the snp there's also the greens and some other smaller parties if those pro-independence and pro-independence referendum parties obtain a majority of the scottish election next year and the prime minister refuses to come to the table to negotiate a second edinburgh agreement the avenue which the first minister contemplated earlier this year should be pursued and indeed must be pursued it would require a carefully crafted bill to use the friends of the words of my friend kevin pringle it would require a carefully crafted bill to be piloted through hollywood then when the inevitable legal challenge came it would be for the courts to decide whether the bill passed was within the competence of the scottish parliament and thus whether the referendum so authorized could proceed they would do so by a process of statutory interpretation and i have no doubt that the case would end up in the uk supreme court if the courts found the bill to be within the competence of of hollywood then we would have a lawful legitimate referendum and it would be one which would be very hard for unionists to boycott but if we lost the case then i'm afraid i respectfully disagree with the first minister i don't think we would be any further back than the stalemate that will ensue if boris johnson digs his heels in and i would expect the uk supreme court and indeed scotland's supreme court to look to the wider constitutional context and to have some comments to make about a government which doesn't allow a second independence referendum when there's a clear electoral mandate in favor of one and when i talk about the wider constitutional context what i mean by that is i think it's unfortunate that the debate about the legitimacy of any scottish vote for self-determination has become so focused on whether or not the uk government will grant a section 30 order what this has meant is that we are discussing scotland's right to self-determination purely through the prism of a devolved settlement which is barely 20 years old and i believe that sends out the wrong message both at home and abroad the legislation governing the devolved settlement should not be the last word on whether scotland can legitimately vote to secede from a union which is over 300 years old the nature of the united kingdom is not always well understood internationally and indeed not always well understood in the united kingdom and i've found that when speaking to international audiences if i explain that the foundation of the united kingdom is a treaty of union between two ancient sovereign states a penny drops they realize then that the independence movement the scottish national party is not a movement for a regional secession but a movement for the resumption of a statute which dates back to the declaration of our growth in 1320 now article one of the treaty of union between scotland and england reads as follows that the two kingdoms of scotland and england shall upon the first of may next ensuing and forever after be united into one kingdom by the name of great britain but those words forever after are not the problem that some might think because equally the acts of the parliament of great britain and ireland affecting the union of great britain and ireland in 1800 also included a provision that great britain and ireland would on the 1st of january 1801 and forever after be united into one kingdom but notwithstanding those words and forever after the union of great britain and ireland came to an end on the 6th of december 1921 by a constitutional process so and i'm indebted to this argument i'm indebted for this argument to aiden o'neill who's advancing it in the keating's case it's clear as a matter of constitutional law that a union of the uk's constituent nations from time to time may be brought to end by a constitutional process and that's a position that predates devolution by some years now as i say my colleague aiden o'neill is advancing this argument in the keating's case and i have to say that that case is looking theoretically at the issue of whether hollywood has the power to hold a referendum and i think it's a pity that the case is proceeding in the absence of the sort of carefully crafted bill from the scottish parliament that i would like to see but full legal argument in the case is going to be heard in january of next year and its outcome could yet have repercussions for the debate and the strategy that i would favor now in a lecture to a center for governance it's only right that i should focus on process and i make no apology for doing that but before i conclude i want to be very clear that the snp is not complacent about the polls which predict victory for us in next year's election or the polls which predict victory in a second independence referendum and it's my very firm view that it is policy and planning for the transition to an independent nation and membership of the eu that will win the prize of independence because once the independence campaign proper begins a searing focus will be turned upon the plans of the scottish national party for the economy trade relations with the rest of the uk and the process of rejoining the eu it's therefore time for us to expedite publication of the new scotland policy papers which the first minister promised on the 31st first of january these will provide the information and answers that people want to see on how scotland can make the transition from a yes vote to becoming an independent country now i absolutely understand why work on these papers was paused by the scottish government to allow focus on the covert crisis but if as some of my colleagues are predicting we are to have an independence referendum soon this work must recommence the conservative party has not halted their plans to leave the customs union in the single market nor their plans to undermine devolution so likewise the snp cannot halt its plans for independence a huge amount of thinking about policy matters has gone on in scotland and indeed across the uk within academic institutions which could be of great assistance to us and it's also gone on within think tanks and organizations like the scottish centre for european relations like commonweal like business for scotland and the scottish independence convention who just recently the other day published a paper on borders all of this information and research needs to be pulled together and packaged for consumption by voters but finally i need to address the issue of what the repercussions of scotland's journey back to statehood will be for the rest of the united kingdom i believe that scottish independence could be the catalyst for the sort of constitutional reform in england which is talked about by the chattering classes but for which governments seem to have no appetite i say england because i think there's a very real question as to what the rest of the uk will consist of after scotland resumes the status of an independent state and on this once more i find myself in agreement with john major in his middle temple lecture when he predicted that scotland will leave the uk first and then northern ireland will re will follow and reunite with the rest of ireland so i suppose the question is what of whales but for this i will defer to others and perhaps to next year's lecture thank you thank you uh very much indeed john for that fascinating fascinating lecture um jacques we are now in a position to um take some questions from the audience there's a chat function better if you have a question to use the q a function that we can we can check um i'd like to start uh with a question uh submitted by kate crichton who's a constituent of yours which picks up on the question about um about scotland's relationship with the eu on which you've you've touched uh significantly in the lecture but she asks in the context of the conversion of no voters to yes voters in scotland and says we will need a binding assurance from the eu that scotland will be welcome to join as an independent nation and ask about the steps that might be taken to get an assurance of that kind well first of all thanks kate for the question um it would be wonderful to get a binding assurance from the european union but i i don't think that's something we can hope for i think what what's very clear is that scotland will require to go through the accession process that uh any other country requires to go through to join the eu because we're no longer part of it any longer and we left on 31st of january this year but i think um the paper published the joint paper publi published by the scottish centre for european relations and conrad adener stifton uh this week makes very comforting reading on that when it notes the fact that the eu's likely to be neutral in a future scottish independence referendum uh it doesn't take the same view as it did when when the uk was a member state where uk is now a third country and also there's a great awareness in the european union of scotland's pro-eu stance and of course much of that is down to the leadership afforded by nicola sturgeon and also some excellent diplomacy carried out by my colleagues in the scottish government including ben mcpherson fiona hislop mike russell uh and also um the uh hubs which have been opened up by the scottish government in cities uh across uh europe so i think we have every reason to be optimistic that while we will face the same accession process we can go through that accession process a good deal more quickly than other nations have done and there's a fair amount of academic writing on how long that might take christy hughes from the centre in european relations written about this james carlinsey has written about this um i'm not going to make up snp policy on the hoof here but i can assure you that when we come to the independence referendum they'll be a very clear statement of intent in relation to that so i regret to say i don't think the eu's in the business of giving out assurances in advance of the usual treaty process but i think the augurs are good um particularly to that paper published earlier this week thank you and we've had a another question one of the great benefits of this online mode is that we can have a much wider audience than we would normally expect we've had a question from the from the basque country from uh ander lauren lauren b anderson um apologies for uh stumbling over the name um who mentions a vienna commission of the council of europe issuing just over a month ago revised guidelines for holding referendums and it says certain media in the spanish state for example have attempted to present the document as the final nail in the coffin for unsanctioned referenda pushback against referendum results undesired by certain sectors is being used to try and block the right of stateless nations democratically to choose their own future in the view of the understandable state-centric view of the council of europe and other supernatural organizations what could or should scotland and other states nations do to change this view and ensure the right for people to express their constitutional choice uh choices are respected in practice well i think it's very important that the right to self-determination is respected in practice but i suppose i'm really focusing this evening on scotland's position and as i've tried to argue there is nothing in the british constitution to prevent scotland from leaving this voluntary union it's not like the spanish constitution whereas i understand it doesn't express prohibition against referendums now i'm not in the business of advocating a wildcat referendum for scotland you know i'm a lawyer i spent a lot of time in the last two years litigating to try and keep their british government within the rules and but main reason is i i i want our vote for our independence to be internationally recognized but i don't want all the power to be in the hands of the british government so i want us to explore our options for bringing boris johnson to the negotiating table or indeed holding our own legal and legitimate referendum thanks and following on from that we've had uh several uh contributors mostly from uh various parts of scotland uh asking about the treaty of union the 1707 treaty of union and wondering about whether as an international treaty um scotland could simply withdraw from that treaty of union uh mentioning on a number of occasions um ways in which the terms of the treaty have been broken um as as a potential reason for doing so i understand why people ask this question and i get a lot of email traffic about this question but as i said in my lecture the bottom line is scotland had an independence referendum in 2014 and at that time the majority of people voted to stay part of the united kingdom and we need to find a way to demonstrate democratically not just by opinion polls but by a referendum or possibly as some have suggested by a plebiscite election but i've explained why i think a referendum would be better to demonstrate the opinion has changed opinion polls aren't enough and there is no legal shortcut to referendum to independence the only thing that the law can do is assist scotland in in in legitimately expressing that change of opinion but the law you know there isn't some magic bullet to trigger scottish independence without a democratic vote and so yes it's true to say that the treaty of union has been reached in a number of respects and i've recently written to the lord chancellor but my concerns about his proposals and reform of judicial review that it might do so but um you know litigation is for legal outcomes sometimes legal outcomes have political consequences but i don't see a unilateral withdrawal or a legal route to independence what i want to see is a democratic route a way in which we can clearly and legitimately express that the balance of opinion has changed thanks another question on referendums we've had a question from ann uh fouls saying she'd like to know your views on a recent proposition about holding a referendum with the election next year to establish a view on devolution in the scottish parliament as a precursor to an independence referendum right so to establish a view on on protecting the scottish parliament or protecting the current evolved settlement or to look for more powers i quite understand um it's it it's not entirely clear from the question but i think it's to establish a view on um on on potential threats to devolution in the scottish parliament yeah i mean i think you know we we know that in 1997 75 there was 75 support for the current devolved settlement in the referendum that took place then and we know from repeated scottish elections that the majority of um representatives elected by voters in scotland both in the scottish parliament and in westminster support the current devolved settlement you know as i said in my speech on the 7th of october the scottish parliament voted overwhelmingly um all parties apart from the conservatives to um reject the internal market bill so i think you know the the support for independent for devolution in scotland is without question i don't think the conservative party could seriously question that the problem we have for independence is we have thrown in our face that there was a referendum uh six years ago and that the majority voted no and that is correct and so we have to find our focus has to be on finding a way to demonstrate in a democratic and legitimate fashion that'll be recognized at home and abroad that that has changed and really what i'm seeking to say is we need to be a little bit more imaginative about how we do that and just to flip back to the previous question i don't say the treaty of union is irrelevant the treaty of union is relevant in giving the context of this debate i do think it's very unfortunate that we have got so bogged down in viewing the issue of how scotland becomes independent purely through the prism of what powers were retained at westminster and what powers were devolved to scotland only 22 years ago you know the union's more than 300 years old the union was voluntary entity i think it's really important in ensuring that we have international support and understanding to explain what the basis of this union is and not to let people um assume that it's just some sort of movement for regional secession in scotland because it's so much more than that and i'm going to try and tempt you on to uh some welsh ground now you okay um so we've had a a number of questions which i'll try and um weave together uh keith bush has asked whether the shotgun wedding of 1707 must inevitably end in a messy divorce or whether there's another option namely a more gradual separation involving all four members of the family going their increasingly separate ways while still remaining friends but building on your point about the um uh about the voluntary nature of the union uh we've also had several questions uh noting that uh the relationship between england and wales is doesn't have the same roots in voluntary agreement or in a treaty that the uh that the anglo-scottish union had or indeed that the union of great britain and ireland uh historically uh had uh and were we've had a number of questions asking uh about what that might mean for uh for the position of wales in this context so i i also was at uh brendan o'leary's lecture and i remember his riffing on the potential acronyms for the different states that might exist as bits left and you know brendan being originally from uh uh from ireland from from the north of ireland talked about uh the kingdom of great britain of course that acronym is already taken uh kgb but he also talked about queue the kingdom of england and wales well yes the the the history of england and wales association is rather different from scotland and england but i don't think anyone could seriously question wales as nationhood i mean look at the language the language has been kept alive and the culture is so rich and also wales has its own assembly and i think you know one of the things i've noticed since i've been uh a member of parliament is how many of the welsh mps and not just plaid company i mean primarily i tend to socialize with plaid company mps but how many of the welsh mps including welsh labour mps and indeed even some welsh conservative mps are very conscious of their welsh nationality and very well educated not only speaking their own language but very well educated in their country's history and and culture so simply because the history of wales and england's association is different from scotland and england that to my mind that in no way undermines the legitimacy of the rapidly growing movements for uh welsh independence and i clearly i wish it well and i have many friends in it and so i you know i my lecture this evening is very much directed at solving the problem that we face at the moment of this rigidity of the british government and trying to perhaps change the nature of debate a little so it's not so focused on how the relatively modern and young er event of devolution the rules governing that should not be the last word on on how scotland becomes independent arguably there's a another sense in which that um just over 20-year history of devolution and the character of the moment when uh you know the the scottish parliament was created or recreated and at that stage the national assembly for wales was created which you know has now become a uh a parliament a legislature with primary legislative powers um and that's that the referendums that led to devolution were simply seen to be a matter for the for the people of the uh of the nations that uh to which power might be devolved uh rather than being seen as a matter for the people of the state as a whole so there is a kind of implicit uh uh sense even back at the origins of devolution of the multinational uh character of of of the united kingdom i think um yeah i think that's a really good point and i i think also something that i should say in response to the previous question which i think it touched on was i think it will be very important um when scotland becomes independent and if ireland reunifies and if wales choose a different constitutional path the law was required to be there will always be a special relationship within these islands and i think it would be interesting to create a bottom up body not a governing body but a body where the governments of the different nations get together to discuss common interests and i mean at the moment we see ourselves in a really really difficult position where um the british government is intent on a a little britain's style path you know a hard brexit and and really moving away from the continent of which it's part in political and socioeconomic terms whereas you know scotland very much aspires to move towards the european union and be up be a part of it but you know i said in my speech rather pessimistically that i think as fear were stuck with the conservatives in government and london for possibly the next nine years but they're not going to be there forever and then maybe england may wish to take a different direction there are many english friends who would like to see england rejoin the eu perhaps in a generation or at least perhaps move a bit more close to it so i think um there will be a real role for some sort of council of the islands or something going forward and to reflect the commonality of interest but it has to be a really different experience from what scotland and wales have endured in the joint ministerial committee you know this has to be sovereign governments meeting as equals in your speech you talked about the relocation of power from london and um and also mentioned uh andy burnham and um you know these um uh these city city mayors or metro mayors uh in in england um uh ann boinen has asked about yesterday's announcement on the shared prosperity fund and leveling up fund and how it'll be managed uh particularly the focus on um it being allocated by the uk government and through uh through mps but i thought that was a shocking um way to circumvent local democracy uh you know we as mps we have important functions but we're not you know lady bountiful there are lord bountiful that should dole out funds that they've got from their masters table to our constituents you know we all you know i'm sitting here in edinburgh we have a local authority and you know the devolved governments just down the road and so i found that extraordinary and trumpian almost and but but i think it's really interesting that boris johnson made his comments about devolution being a disaster as i understand it in a meeting with red wall mp so he was speaking to tory mps from the north the midlands and the north of england and i assume he was speaking in a context where he was moaning about andy burnham and some of the other northern metro mayors and their alliance and the way in which they've really stood up for their local areas and probably saying to these redwall mps we're certainly not giving them any more devolution because look how uppity they are already um i think it would be really good for england to have greater local democracy and more regional devolution but i don't see the political appetite for for doing that and i'm absolutely opposed to the idea that scotland should have to wait or pause her constitutional journey to wait for england to catch up because frankly we'll be waiting a long time is my opinion and you know these opinion polls i've referred to 14 i think there's been another one since i wrote the lecture 15 um in succession showing significant majority support for independence in scotland you know this is this is a direction of travel which is very different from england i mean on that note i will uh maybe take advantage of my position uh chairing this uh this session to refer to some uh some research that i've been involved with with colleagues in the governance center and together with professor professor elsa henderson at edinburgh university where we've looked at the role of national uh identities and particularly relative national identities so the relationship between um the sub-state identity scottishness welshness englishness in britain and british identity in each of those places and what we've found is uh is really a fascinating pattern which suggests that british identity isn't one thing across britain in other words in england people who prioritize an english identity were much more likely to vote for brexit whereas people who prioritize a british identity were more likely to vote remain in scotland it was the other way around uh and wales followed the scottish pattern or showed the same pattern as as scotland and i think that um that amplifies this sense of um the debates in each of the parts of britain and i think the same thing would be true in northern ireland where of course britishness means something else uh yet again um the debates are really quite distinct um really quite separate you know notwithstanding the uh the influence of uk wide media so it does then i think become quite challenging to think about how similar sort of political economy issues similar questions about the relationship between central government and uh and localities can translate into um into a single britain-wide political uh debate i mean equally that poses challenges i think for the position in scotland really being understood uh in westminster and i'd be interested to press you on the extent to which you think um the position in scotland is is is simply misunderstood uh by for example members of the current uh conservative government or whether you feel they understand uh the position fine well but have a political agenda one of the questions we've received in the in the in the feed is a question about what you think and this is inviting you to speculate about someone else as well but what you you mentioned the constitutional agenda of uh of the jonathan administration and uh the question or was inviting you to to say what you think in detail that agenda might be well i think it it's not just about brexit and it's not just about undermining the devolved settlement it's a centralizing agenda the announcement yesterday the lady bountiful lord bountiful mps and the shared prosperity fund that shows a very centralizing agenda where all the power is held in the central government and the mps go as supplicants rather than funding be put down to devolved administrations and then england local um authorities but i think the constitutional agenda is much wider than that at the moment we have our so-called independent review into administrative law in which the terms of reference and the language around it very clearly contemplate a restriction of the right uh to hold executive power to account in the courts we are promised an independent review into the human rights act and conservatives like to talk about updating the human rights act but it's very important to understand that that review of the human rights act is taking place against a background where one of the major sticking points in the in the negotiations between the eu and the uk about the future relationship has been the refusal of the british government to sign up to the guarantees the eu wanted in relation to the domestic protection of human rights now of course that's what the human rights act is all about it was about making people able to enforce their council their echr rights through their domestic courts and there's a very strong suspicion amongst many of us in westminster that what the british government is seeking to do is to water down opportunities for enforcement of human rights through the domestic courts and that's why they won't sign up to this guarantee and then in addition to to that of course um there is the uh recent announcement that they're going to be looking at reforming the united kingdom supreme court uh possibly um curtailing its activities as a constitutional court to use as to use the kind of language they would use reducing uh the number of judges in the court and and then of course in addition to that we have what you mentioned in your introduction is the evincing of an intention to break um international law to break recently entered into treaty obligations and part five of the internal market bill so to my mind this is this is part of a constitutional um direction of travel which is about centralizing power in london in westminster and about undermining the opportunities to hold executive power to account in the courts and really actually i'd go so far as to say as an attack an attack on the rule of law and the language that's been used by the prime minister and the home secretary about activists and lefty lawyers we recently had the lord chancellor giving evidence to the joint committee on human rights of which i'm a member and you know in fairness to the lord chancellor he's usually quite good on judicial impartiality defense judges but he did not resile from this sort of language he kind of doubled down on the criticisms that pretty patel and the prime minister have made of of lefty lawyers and you know this is really very serious and you know to it was lord dyson who said it's normally the sort of language you hear in a totalitarian regime the sort of language that our prime minister and home secretary have used about lawyers who are simply doing their job um so i find it a very worrying constitutional direction of traveling yeah i'm not saying scotland is perfect and we have um our own issues from time to time in scottish government from time to time has had its risk slapped in the court over certain issues in relation to executive power and human rights aspects of of um hollywood legislation not that often uh to to be fair but i think there's a very different direction of travel up here you know the first minister has an advisory group in human rights they've produced a very exciting framework for the development of the protection of human rights in scotland you know the legal profession to use uh to use pretty uh to use john boris johnson's words about pretty patel as the legal profession has preferred has formed a protective shield around scotland's legal system you don't want people messing around with judicial review in scotland and so i think the direction of travel there in broader terms just moving away from the debate about independence or union and looking at how we create a state how we hold the executive part of our account how we protect individuals human rights scotland i feel is very much on the right side of that debate from the point of view of somebody who believes in a rules-based rule of law society and i think westminster's on the wrong side of it of course in uh wales is part of a single legal jurisdiction with england which relates back to some of the earlier uh discussions about the about the differences and which also um generates some uh uh challenging issues around the around justice policy and the balance between reserved and devolved powers in wales uh for for justice policy in that context i i think it's also interesting to see the role of um you know former justices of the supreme court uh lord hope lord thomas in the house of lords uh in the um in the changes the house of lords made to the to the internal market bill and a couple of weeks ago um at the same time the the uh johnson administration's agenda seems to me uh to contain some important tensions in in these sorts of areas so if you think about the internal market bill and how it might operate if uh if it was implemented uh or enacted uh along the lines um suggested before the lord's reforms and potentially it creates more demand for legal resolution of conflicts over mutual recognition uh non-discrimination uh some of the um background material suggests that businesses might take judicial reviews of um of of laws that they felt contravened uh mutual recognition for example and so it's the the creation of a structure that seems to call out for some kind of um court-based resolution system at the same time as uh in another part of um the landscape those institutions are are are being uh scrutinized and uh perhaps prepared for reform and and one can understand that you know even very senior judges might feel particularly politically exposed in this kind of uh kind of a context which brings me back to a question that ian thomas asked uh particularly about your um alternative routes to a possible referendum on independence in scotland ian asked how much confidence do you have that a favorable result in the uk supreme court uh will be possible uh particularly a uk supreme court whose powers will in all probability have been diminished uh by what he calls a vengeful english tory party well interesting question um i think it may take some i think i think we are some way away from the supreme court's powers being diminished although we do have a vengeful administration i have no doubt of that um but i i think there will be i think they will have um some internal opposition as well as uh opposition from the profession and and ngos etc um i think professor alien mccarth has said that uh the supreme court hasn't showed a lot of interest in defending the devolved settlement and i think not just alien macarthur but also aiden o'neill and others have been very critical of the supreme court's judgment in the first miller case on sewell and i certainly feel it could be argued as i think aidan o'neill has argued that it um their position on sewell in the first miller case doesn't sit very well with their attitude towards the importance of constitutional conventions in the prorogation case maybe the supreme court needs to look at the sewell convention again i i know my colleagues in the scottish government have not ruled out the possibility of litigating about the internal market bill we'll need to see what it looks like when it's been back to the commons and back to the lords and then back to the commons um [Music] i how confident am i of a victory in the courts on the issue of whether scotland could hold scottish parliament could hold a referendum i think there's a good argument with reasonable prospects of success um but you know as a lawyer i'm not going to say more than that no i wouldn't expect that you would um we've had we've had a question from paul gibbon about scottish independence and the currency so whether the case the argument is stronger if uh scotland is proposing its own currency and whether the smp's policy is still for sterlingization well the snp conference a year and a half ago and voted to keep sterling initially but to move uh trying to have exact words as soon as possible to our own currency and i'm not going to make snp policy up on the hoof here um but you know the policy will be clearly stated when the independence campaign starts thanks um one other question about uh about the the the european context and possible steps stuart mcdonald has asked whether after is not the obvious first step perhaps uh after a further referendum on that subject a further referendum on whether we should join the european union i i mean i suppose it's a it's a post-independence referendum question yeah i mean i think there has been much discussion about whether scotland should join the european union or be in efta and the eea i mean efta on its own would not be much use to us we'd need to be in a sort of a norway type position where you're in efta and the european economic area the policy of the snp very firmly is that we should be in the european union and be sitting at the top table alongside countries like ireland and um voting on policy and having an influence on the direction of the european union the problem with being in efta and then joining the eea to be part of the single markets you don't have a seat at the top table so i sometimes think that um people think that this is is is a solution and somehow it will be easier to be an fta and the eea but if you want to be in the eea and you still have to have the consent of all the member states are already in the single market so i don't really see that it it would really be of any benefit to us i would like to see us in the single market and the customs union as full members of the european union sitting at the top table it's possible of course that while we're going through the accession process we could be in some kind of halfway house but i wouldn't see after as a halfway house the halfway house would be the sort of association agreement that people like kirsty hughes have proposed as perhaps covering us uh taking us through the interim period the transition if you like from being where we are now and being a full member of the european union that's happened for other accession states thanks very much uh um that's a very clear and uh and precise answer the the uh the after position is um is is clearly uh very limited in terms of the uh involvement in the shaping of policy and doesn't automatically bring the uh the free movement um aspects uh back uh uh uh completely i i i suppose i'd like to press you on how how important that question of of uh regaining free movement hugely important in scotland hugely important because of our demographics and you know inward inward immigration people coming from europe and indeed the wider world to live and work and have their lives in scotland is hugely important to the scottish economy so it's kind of a bit of a deal breaker free movement is really really important for us and this has been one of the huge frustrations of trying to persuade the british government to have any kind of concession made towards um allowing scotland to have the kind of arrangement that spoke about briefly in the speech that the canadian provinces have at least been able to run our own immigration programs have been a very small minor concession made in that respect but despite the promises of people like gov about scotland being able to run its own immigration policy if we left the european union they simply haven't come about and there's absolutely no appetite at westminster to devolve immigration to scotland despite huge support from that from the business sector in scotland from the university sector and so on so yeah free movement is very important for scotland's economy i've again done some um some deliberative workshops online over the summer um across britain on what uh what people want um after leaving the eu particularly focusing on folk who voted to leave and the session in scotland was highly distinctive because in the rest of uh of britain including to an extent in wales levers remained very concerned about about migration as a potentially threatening thing although there was quite a lot of evidence of people um also recognizing especially in the pandemic context the contribution that uh european migrants working in care working in the health service had made um but in scotland even amongst levers uh migration you know the idea of immigrants um really wasn't uh seen as a as a negative issue as a concern uh at all the discussion was much much more focused on the economy um and on that slightly self-indulgent note i think it was very important to pick up that question of the uh of the place of free movement uh for scotland um looking ahead but on that uh rather self-indulgent note i'd like to thank you for a fascinating fascinating talk uh for being so generous in uh in your answering a wide range of questions you know they're on on on these sorts of uh online uh events there are always many many more questions than we can get to and i apologize to those in the audience who've asked questions that we haven't managed to get to but i'd like to thank um thank you joanna very much indeed for your uh for your fascinating lecture today and also to thank the audience and those behind the scenes who've made this possible i've enjoyed myself tremendously and learned a lot and it's been a real pleasure to see you again uh even if only through a screen thank you i mean it's been it's been my pleasure and my privilege and uh great to see you too no sweat

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Length: 92min 0sec (5520 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 03 2020