Business of the House

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Last week, while gleefully celebrating the supposed woes of the SNP, the Leader of the House and her opposite number, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), pitched their tents so high on the moral high ground that it is a wonder they did not get altitude sickness. But my goodness, life comes at you fast! Seven days on and a bullying scandal has claimed the career of a Tory Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), while Labour’s inter-factional warfare continues to spill out into the public domain, with a former shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), following their former party leader out the door. Tempted as I am, given last week’s shenanigans, I will make no further comment, save to say that perhaps we should have a Government-led debate on the UK glazing industry and the benefit it would gain from people in glass houses being addicted to throwing stones.

However, I will add a thank you, because the more hysterical their attacks on us, the more our membership grows—it is up 3,000 in the past couple of weeks to 75,000. How that compares to the number of members of other political parties in Scotland we will never know, because as far as the Unionists are concerned, transparency is strictly for other people. For all we know, there could be literally hundreds of Scottish Tories running around, and we just would not know.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I will tell you who was transparent this week: Lord Frost. The unelected—indeed, never elected—brains behind Brexit finally said out loud what they have all been thinking when he said

“not only must no more powers be devolved to Scotland, it’s time to reverse the process”.

The emboldened lord doubled down when, on Toytown TV, he said that there had been a lot of private messaging from sympathisers in the party saying, “Keep talking—this needs to be said.” Can we therefore have a debate so that the Leader of the House and her colleagues can rally around the noble Lord Frost and his attempts to quell Scottish democracy?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Whatever political party people support, I am always encouraged to hear that membership of political parties is growing. However, I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if we do not trust him on the figures.

[Brendan O’Hara]

Let’s compare!

[Penny Mordaunt]

I would be happy to. In all honesty, I am really surprised at what the hon. Gentleman has said and his choice of questioning today. There was no humility, no regret and no apology. Whatever our political beliefs and the differences over our ambitions for the Union, there is a common understanding among all of us in this place of the shared values and principles that underpin our democracy—I hope that is the case. I will never share the beliefs of the hon. Gentleman’s party membership on Scottish independence; I may also disagree with Lord Frost, on occasion. However, I think I do understand the ambitions of the SNP membership and what they are based on, because my ambitions for our country are based on the same things: self-determination, agency, moral courage, progress of humanity and love of country.

How devastating it must be for SNP members and supporters to have placed their hopes and trust in the hands of people who have been so reckless with their dreams and the mandate that they have given them. Now they know how many Scottish taxpayers also feel when they look at the SNP’s ruinous sell-off and sell-out of their country. Just when we think the farce that has been going on in Scotland over the past weeks—the SNP’s great closing down sale—cannot get any worse, it has just offered a two-for-one offer of a coalition with Labour. Braveheart has turned out to be Brutus.