First Minister John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond and Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay.
By Bill Heaney
Independence -‘You’re having a laugh’. That was Scottish Conservative Party leader Russell Findlay’s reaction to First Minister John Swinney in the Holyrood parliament this morning.
His disparaging remarks were greeted with loud dismay from around the chamber when he said: “Yesterday, John Swinney launched yet another taxpayer-funded paper on independence. He has called it a fresh start.”
Even at this early stage of FMQs, the Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone struggled to keep the lid on things.
Russell Findlay said: “They will not be clapping in a minute. The same John Swinney has dreamed about breaking up the United Kingdom for almost 50 years. He was at the forefront of the free by 93 campaign.
“He first became leader of the Scottish National Party at the turn of the millennium. In 2014, he played a crucial role in the—losing—Yes campaign. Thank you, John. Last year, he became SNP leader again. He really thinks that it is plausible to describe his latest independence paper as a fresh start. Is John Swinney having a laugh?”
Mr Swinney told him: “I am deadly serious about the argument for Scottish independence. As a country, we have exercised self-government since 1999, with the establishment of this Parliament. A number of significant benefits have been achieved for the people of Scotland.
“Some of those, such as the ban on smoking in public places and the introduction of free personal care, were delivered by the previous Government and some of them were delivered by my Government—including the abolition of tuition fees, minimum unit pricing for alcohol and the introduction of the Scottish child payment.
“We are at a moment now, in Scotland, when the rightward drift of the United Kingdom and the stagnation of living standards in our country demonstrate a need to re-examine the argument. That is why independence is the fresh start that Scotland needs.”
Russell Findlay told the chamber: “The fact that he says that he is deadly serious is actually even more worrying than if he had just been having a laugh. John Swinney cannot offer a fresh start, because he has been in the SNP Government for almost 20 years.
“He was Nicola Sturgeon’s and Alex Salmond’s right-hand man. He was up to his neck in every SNP scandal: ferries, gender self-identification, Scottish Qualifications Authority exams, named persons and many more. He ran down Scotland’s economy and then he ran down Scotland’s education system.
“A new survey shows that public trust in the Scottish Government is at an all-time low—and it is a Scottish Government survey. Does John Swinney accept that that is a damning judgment of his dismal record?”
The First Minister fended him off: “What my Government is focused on is improving the lives of people in Scotland. That is why we are keeping prescriptions free in Scotland while they are nearly £10 under Labour in England; it is why we are protecting free tuition in Scotland while fees are rising south of the border; it is why we have expanded free early learning and childcare, extended free school meals, introduced the Scottish child payment and abolished—for good—peak rail fares on our railways. We are interested in providing practical support to improve the lives of people in Scotland, and we will continue to do that.
“I notice that, in the survey that Mr Findlay is talking about, there is also a question on independence. It indicates that support for independence is at 47 per cent—up from 27 per cent in 1999.”
He added: “I can see the direction of travel in Scotland—it is going towards independence.”
Russell Findlay told MSPs: “Nicola Sturgeon’s book should be in the fiction section, but John Swinney’s paper should really be in the fantasy section. It is not just harmless fantasy but dangerous dishonesty. This graph here, from his paper, says that Scotland’s gross domestic product has grown faster than that of the rest of the UK when the opposite is true.
“Serious and credible experts have demolished the Government’s 90-page exercise in wishful thinking. Leading economist Professor Ronald MacDonald said that John Swinney’s plans were “totally shambolic” and that they would have ‘a devastating effect’.
“He expressed astonishment at the ‘total ignorance’ of the SNP’s currency position. Damningly, he said that all of that would impact on public sector wages, pensions, mortgages and borrowing costs for homes and businesses.”
Russell Findlay added: “John Swinney’s paper offers no solutions. It does nothing to help people’s lives here and now. It is an outrage that it was produced by Scottish civil servants. Will John Swinney stop wasting taxpayers’ money on such nonsense?”
But John Swinney rebutted all of this. He said: “Under the SNP Government, GDP per person has grown by 10.3 per cent in Scotland compared with 6.1 per cent in the UK, while productivity has grown at an average rate of 1.1 per cent per year in Scotland compared with the UK average of 0.4 per cent. That demonstrates that the point that Mr Findlay has put to Parliament is not correct.
“The issue that Mr Findlay must address is that the arguments that he puts forward for preserving the status quo are now completely and utterly threadbare. Labour and Tory politicians said that staying in the United Kingdom would lower our bills, but the opposite has been the case.
“They promised financial security but gave us the Liz Truss mini-budget. They assured us that voting no was the surest way for Scotland to remain in the European Union, but Scotland has been taken out of the EU against our will. The arguments against Scottish independence have collapsed since 2014, and Scotland is on a pathway to independence.”
Russell Findlay replied: “John Swinney’s graph on GDP is wrong, just as the stats that he gave last week on income tax were wrong. If he ever got his way, it would mean extreme tax rises and severe spending cuts for Scotland.
“Mortgages would go up, pensions would be put at risk and there would be a hard border with England. Scotland would be divided and would be smaller and weaker.
“Despite all of that, John Swinney keeps obsessing about independence, which would make Scots poorer. It is no wonder that public trust in the SNP is at an all-time low.
“John Swinney is not a fresh start. He is a tired nationalist with a dismal record. He is not focused on building a strong economy for the future. He is wasting time and taxpayers’ money on the same old arguments of the past.
“For the sake of Scotland, is he ever going to give up on his independence obsession and move on?”
The First Minister said: “It is pretty clear to any member of the public watching this exchange that the more Russell Findlay gets personally insulting to his political rivals, the weaker his arguments become. What I have marshalled and put in front of Parliament today is the evidence. Living standards in Scotland are stagnating, and they have stagnated for 15 years.
“Living standards in Scotland, as part of the United Kingdom, have ground to a halt. Brexit has been a disaster. The implications of the Liz Truss mini-budget have wreaked economic difficulty and havoc on the people of the UK, and Scotland has been saddled with that, despite the promises of lower prices, lower bills and access to the European Union that were made by the no campaign in 2014.
“I am very proud to lead a campaign that is about focusing on improving living standards in Scotland and transforming the lives of the people of Scotland, and we will do that through independence.”
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