20th November 2023: A Week in Parliament

Ceasefire

Last week I was proud to stand alongside 124 other members in calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The SNP amendment was put forward to the house and was unfortunately defeated 293 – 125. I have huge respect to the 56 Labour MPs who had the guts to put humanity before party politics and vote for the SNP amendment. Unfortunately, neither of Labour’s two Scottish MPs, voted on the motion. In advance of the vote, I intervened on both Rachel Reeves and David Lammy and asked them if they would be voting for a ceasefire but both frontbenchers refused to answer, albeit the writing was on the wall that they wouldn’t be voting in favour of it. History will be the judge of their (in)actions.

The way the Scottish Labour MPs voted also showed once again that “Scottish Labour” is indeed a branch office. Anas Sarwar supposedly leads Scottish Labour and has called for a ceasefire. Yet, had Ian Murray the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland voted that way, Keir Starmer would have sacked him. Proof, once again, that Labour MPs from Scotland are answerable only to their London masters.

Supreme Court

Last week we saw the decision from the Supreme Court which ruled that the Tory's abhorrent Rwanda policy was unlawful. Of course, this is welcome but it is concerning that the Tories are still looking for ways around this as Sunak has spoken about bringing in emergency legislation to go through with it anyway. Once again, their guilt surfaces in targeting the most vulnerable in our society. In stark contrast, Scotland stands firm on values of dignity and compassion. They claim this will be a deterrent to the criminal gangs who exploit vulnerable people. Given these criminal gangs have no morals, they will continue to tell lies and take money off those who have desperately fled persecution, so the Rwanda policy is just an expensive, cruel and inhumane gimmick and will make no difference to the numbers willing to risk their lives to cross the Channel.

Douglas Ross

At last week’s Scottish Affairs Committee, Lord Robertson joked when he became Defence Secretary some of his colleagues claimed it was a “demotion” and that he had to go along with it “such is the parochialism in Scotland.” Later, I challenged Robertson on his comments, pondering how many colleagues thought Scotland was parochial. Douglas Ross challenged my quote back which Hansard had proven I was correct. So why did Ross do this? A strange bullying tactic to try and put me on the back foot or to make me doubt myself? Who knows but I hope going forward he puts professionalism over petulance.

Fenwick Street Surgery

On Friday it was great to be out and about in Fenwick chapping doors with my staff as part of our constituency engagement. We knocked on around 150 doors in the village and heard from constituents on their doorsteps about important local and national issues. It was yet another positive experience and some cases picked up for my office. Looking forward to heading to Darvel in a few weeks (8th December) for my next Street Surgery.