I have to say that I am surprised by the remarks from the Chair. All that I was doing was responding to an intervention, which I was answering to the fullest extent that I could. I will move on.
It is pertinent to ask how the UK has got itself into this situation. In the recent general election campaign, the then leader of the Conservative party committed his party to holding a referendum on EU membership if elected to government. That commitment was made not from a position of conviction—because he personally wanted out of the EU—but simply to buy off those in his own party who did not want to be part of Europe. There was no leadership and no vision about how to take Europe forward; it was an abrogation of responsibility, and we then had the most unedifying of campaigns.
In Scotland we often refer to the arrangements for our own referendum as the gold standard, although that admittedly did not stop the descent into negativity that characterised “Project Fear”. We can argue, however, that there was strong public engagement and, crucially, young people whose future was to be determined by the vote—those aged 16 and 17—were able to participate. EU citizens living in Scotland also participated, and rightly so.
The EU referendum was different: 16 and 17-year-olds, and EU citizens were excluded. We might have anticipated that the debate would therefore become narrow and inward looking, and that is precisely what happened. The Prime Minister and his Government who wanted to remain in Europe had the opportunity to shape the debate, but rather than painting a vision of the UK in Europe, “Project Fear” went into overdrive—not so much a positive case for Europe as a campaign that failed to inspire. The Prime Minister went into battle with a plan that was flawed, and that became increasingly obvious in the months leading up to the referendum.
In much of the UK, the debate came to be about immigration—not about how migration in and out of the UK can enrich our society and the rest of the world, but about a fear of immigration. There was little appreciation or understanding of the positive impact that migrants have on our economy, or of their contribution to our health service and other public services. There has been much talk of those left behind, those who have not seen improvement in their living standards or quality of life, but immigration has not led to such circumstances; they are the result of a failure of Government policy to invest in our public services to ensure that capacity is sufficient to meet the needs of all our communities.