Press Release
10th May 2000
SNP Independence Motion – "186 word suicide note."
In a highly charged debate in the Scottish Parliament today, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Duncan McNeil, branded Alex Salmond "the Victor Meldrew of Scottish Politics" whose independence motion read like a "suicide note." He also condemned the SNP’s complicity in the decline of Scottish shipbuilding.
Commenting on the independence motion entitled "State of the Nation" tabled in Mr Salmond’s name, Mr McNeil told a boisterous chamber:
"The state of the nation, indeed. Who does he think he is, Bill Clinton? More like Victor Meldrew."
Mr McNeil captured the mood of many on the Labour benches when he criticised the SNP for tabling a negative, unconstructive motion:
"Regrets, they have a few. But, then again, not too few to mention.
"This motion is written in the language of failure. It reads like a 186 word suicide note.
"They have a greet about manufacturing; a moan about health; a whine about local government; a gurn about education; a complaint about public investment; and a whinge about transport.
"Since they arrived in this Parliament, that is all they have done. Only opening their mouths to run Scotland down.
"This motion is, if anything, a pretty fair summary of the SNP’s attitude over the past year.
"They revel in the language of failure and decline. They delight in disaster and gloat over misfortune.
"Why?
"Because they want us to fail. They need us to fail. And they are doing everything in their power to see that we do fail.
"They voted against more money for the NHS. They voted against more money for education. They voted against scrapping tuition fees and the return of Grants."
The SNP’s willingness to put independence before everything else was also condemned. Mr McNeil made special mention of the SNPs role in the decline of shipbuilding:
"This motion is, I’m afraid, a sad reflection of the SNP’s priorities.
"Independence above everything. Above jobs, above schools, above hospitals, above crime. Independence at all costs.
"They are more concerned about taking Scotland out of Britain, than taking drugs and poverty out of Scotland.
"But has it not always been thus?
"Let’s take just one example from the motion. Top of their moan list is manufacturing.
"It was the SNP’s blind devotion to independence at all costs that led, in 1979, to them voting against nationalisation of the shipbuilding industry and bringing down a Labour government. This act of treachery allowed those friends of the shipbuilder, the Tory party, into power and gave them the green light to decimate our shipbuilding communities.
"Were it not for them, we could still say with pride that Scotland was home to such great shipbuilders as Scott’s in Greenock; Lithgow’s in Port Glasgow; Hall Russell in Aberdeen; and the Caledon yards in Dundee and Leith
"The sort of posturing that led to the closure of these yards might go down well at an SNP party conference. But how pleased were the workers with whose livelihoods you had played politics?
"And here we go again. Now that they have the cheek to complain about the problems facing Govan and Yarrows, we have come full circle.
"Quite apart from the question of how, at the same time as we are negotiating our exit from the United Kingdom, we are supposed to negotiate for part of an MoD contract, the nationalist position is a nonsense.
"So we can be assured that now, as then, the SNP will put independence before the future of jobs at Yarrows and Govan."
ENDS
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