BBC host Fiona Bruce interrupted a Question Time debate on Scottish independence to claim that the 2014 vote had settled the issue for “20 to 30 years” ...
Bruce stepped into an exchange between Tory MP Harriet Cross and Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer to suggest that the first independence referendum meant the question could not be asked of the Scottish people again “for a generation”.
The Question Time panel and audience – who were in Dumfries on Thursday evening – were debating whether the UK is “now held together by Westminster veto rather than national consent” when the moment happened.
Cross said: “There was a vote in 2014. That settled the argument.”
Greer responded: “Settled the argument for how long? For how long did it settle the argument?”
BBC host Bruce then cut in to say: “Well, for a generation is what, is what was claimed at the time. And a generation is what? 20 to 30 years?”
“Says who?” Greer asked.
Bruce responded: “Well, that’s the definition of a generation, that’s all I’m saying.”
Greer then said: “There's hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland who are old enough to vote now who weren't then.”
Speaking to Cross, he went on: “I absolutely genuinely and sincerely respect that you're a Unionist, your party are a Unionist party, but if this is the democratic voluntary Union that you say it is, surely you need to explain how people can make that choice.”
He added that the first independence referendum was “12 years ago [and] democracy’s not a one-off event”.
Elsewhere, the new SNP Economy Secretary Stephen Flynn said his party had pushed for a second referendum because “the reality is, and it goes to the very premise of this question, we had to try and break this logjam where people in Scotland vote for something and Westminster ignores it”.
He went on: “We set ourselves a bar to get to [an SNP majority]. We didn't quite get there, but what happened in Holyrood is we have a record number of MSPs and because of [the Greens] and because of us, who believe that Scotland's future should be in Scotland's hands and Westminster should respect that.”
Speaking for the UK Government, Labour Scotland Office minister Kirsty McNeill said she had been elected “on a manifesto that had some red lines”, including saying no to a second independence referendum.
“Everyone in Scotland is not of one mind on the independence question and I think there's something quite dangerous about the elision between Scotland and the Scottish National Party,” she added.
“I do think it's dangerous, Stephen, that you framed this as Scotland wants a referendum and Scotland wants independence and Westminster won't let them.
“That's not what's going on. People in Scotland disagree about whether there should be a referendum and they disagree about their desired outcome of that referendum.”
Flynn questioned why Labour believed their manifesto pledges counted, when SNP election victories did not.
“In 2015, 2017, 2019, 2016 and 2021, the SNP won elections on manifesto commitments to deliver an independence referendum,” he said.
“These parties ignored it. Kirsty's party ignored it on a Westminster basis. They now say that their Westminster manifesto matters, but ours didn't.
“The hypocrisy of that knows no ends.”
During the 2014 referendum campaign, pro-Yes campaigners said the vote was a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity, a phrase which has since been used by the Unionist side to dismiss calls for a second vote.
However, Professor Ciaran Martin – one of the architects of the Edinburgh Agreement which led to the referendum – previously said that was a “slogan” that “doesn’t invalidate the results of the [2021 Holyrood] election”.
First Minister John Swinney is due to bring a vote on a second referendum to the new Scottish parliament next Tuesday. However, the UK Government holds power over whether Scots will be allowed to vote on the issue.
