Pete Wishart

Pete Wishart

Scottish National Party — Perth and Kinross-shire

Speaking in the House of Commons on 14 October 2026

Debate

MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

Contribution

Absolutely. Whole communities across the United Kingdom are now concerned about their safety. They are very anxious about the type of culture that is evolving and developing in every constituency and community. They are right to be concerned, because I hear it in my constituency myself. On the subject of the small boats, the truth is that there are more National Lottery millionaires each year than there are foreign nationals who have won human rights appeals due to the ECHR in the United Kingdom. If the ECHR were removed, it would deprive us in Scotland of our basic fundamentals in the Scottish Parliament, which is that every part of our legislation has to be ECHR-compliant. It is not just the devolution process in Northern Ireland that will be compromised; it will be my Parliament and our democracy in Scotland, which the Conservatives care not a jot about, and they would pursue our leaving the ECHR without giving it a second thought. For all of these reasons, this is a thoroughly bad motion—an abhorrent motion—and I despair of the language that has been used. I hope when the Conservatives sum up we will hear a little bit more about decency and the common values that we could all buy into, but I doubt that very much—

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