Scottish Labour's EU ref rants at the SNP

Ian Murray, the last Labour MP in Scotland, is again spending his time thinking up ways to attack the SNP rather than getting on with doing something useful.

He used the appearance of SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh on BBC's Question Time program last night to continue his attack against Angus Robertson. I admit that in my post on Wednesday, I was too kind by far to Ian Murray - my fault for still very much being a beginner in the world of politics (I was awakened by indyref and still have much to learn).

This time, Murray even references a piece about his Twitter spat with Angus Robertson on FullFact, claiming that it proves Murray's point: the SNP are liars.

Of course, it does no such thing.

The Tories want to have a referendum on our EU membership and thus need to pass a Bill through the House of Commons to do that. Given the Tories have an outright majority, the Bill is easily passed by them alone. If it didn't pass, the Tories would have to submit a new referendum Bill. This, apparently, is all part of the parliamentary process. If a Bill doesn't pass, modify and resubmit; if it fails again, modify and resubmit; continue until Bill is modified enough to pass.

So Labour could have stood with the SNP and voted against the bill in its current form because it excludes EU nationals and 16 & 17 year olds from voting. If they had succeeded with voting the bill down, the government would have been forced to modify the bill's "voting franchise" to allow EU nationals and 16 & 17 year olds to vote, and then resubmit the corrected bill to the House of Commons.

This, to me, seems a sensible approach.

Of course that didn't happen. Even if Labour had voted against, the Bill would still have been passed by the Tories because there's more Tory MPs than Labour & SNP MPs combined. It would then move on to the committee stage where both Labour & SNP could table amendments.

Given that the Bill could have been passed without Labour's help, it is disingenuous for them to claim that they are against the Bill's voting franchise but have chosen the committee stage to make their opposition known. There is no logic in thinking that a Labour amendment will be passed when they don't have enough MPs to make that happen.

Murray's defence of his position is laughable:

Yes, Labour campaigned in the election against a referendum but with a majority Conservative Government we have taken the decision to support it, make sure the Bill is amended and encourage the Government to get on with it ASAP to limit damage on UK economy.

My reading of that statement is this:

• Since the Tories won outright, we've adopted their policies.
• We can't "make sure" anything happens as we don't have enough MPs.
• The Government bandwagon is unstoppably rolling so we may as well jump on it.
• We'll pretend it's for the good of the economy but because we have too few MPs to effect the Bill, it's really about making our party more appealing to a centre-right English electorate.

So Ian Murray, the last Labour MP in Scotland, should stop pretending he's a victim and start admitting the truth. Labour had a choice and they wholeheartedly chose to jump on the Tory bandwagon. The SNP are right to point this out.