Ian Blackford: Westminster is ‘denying democracy to people of Scotland’

The SNP MP told the Commons: ‘It is the people of Scotland that are sovereign’.

Ian Blackford has condemned the UK Government (Andrew Milligan/PA) (PA Wire)

A Conservative Government “propped up by their Labour friends” is “denying democracy to the people of Scotland”, SNP former Westminster leader Ian Blackford has argued.

Mr Blackford, who was succeeded in the post by fellow SNP MP Stephen Flynn earlier this month, told the Commons: “It is the people of Scotland that are sovereign”.

The MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber attacked Brexit, as he sought to draw a parallel between Conservative former prime minister David Cameron’s EU referendum and a Scottish independence referendum.

He said that “we didn’t want Brexit, we still don’t want Brexit, the people of Scotland want to be part of the European Union”, adding: “But it’s right in the context of the UK, that David Cameron was able to enact his referendum. He didn’t have to go to the EU and ask for permission to put that referendum to the people of the UK.”

We’re being penalised by a market that’s not fit for purpose, at a time that Scotland has that abundance of energy, that is the cost of being in the union today

Ian Blackford

He went on: “All that the UK Government had to do was enact Article 50. They had that right to say to the EU, that they have decided that their future lay elsewhere.”

He said the SNP was seeking to “give the powers to the Scottish Parliament” to enact its election-winning manifesto.

He added: “What we’ve got, is a Tory Government propped up by their Labour friends that are denying democracy to the people of Scotland, that is the reality and it’s on the basis of that, that we have had to come to this chamber today and seek to give the powers to the Scottish Parliament to enact the manifesto that they won that election on and to be able to call that referendum.”

Referring to the joint statement in June 2014, he went on: “It’s right if that statement is true, it is right if the other parties accepted that, that the Scottish Parliament has a mechanism, (to) enable itself to call a referendum on Scotland’s future.”

Mr Blackford spoke of the “burning desire” and “anger about the economic circumstances that we’re in within this union”.

He said: “We need to find a way that the people of Scotland that have sent members of the Scottish Parliament, to our Parliament, a majority elected on a mandate of delivering an independence referendum, that that happens.”

On energy, he said: “We can think about the lost opportunities of the bounty of North Sea oil that have been frittered away and a lack of legacy for future generations, but now we face the bounty of green renewable energy.”

It was a “disgrace”, he added, that “people in energy-rich Scotland are paying the price of the Westminster control of the energy market”.

He went on: “We’re being penalised by a market that’s not fit for purpose, at a time that Scotland has that abundance of energy, that is the cost of being in the union today.”

Mr Blackford spoke of the potential employment opportunities from renewable energy, adding: “Just from energy alone by 2050 we could deliver 385,000 jobs.”