TALKING POLITICS Results show people in power must listen to the people

The lesson of this election? People in power must listen to the people.

All the leaders going into last week’s general election described it as the most important we have faced. What is important now is that those in positions of power, elected or appointed, must accept the will of the people, however uncomfortable that may be for them personally.

I am obviously delighted with the result in Airdrie & Shotts and thank people locally for the faith they have placed in me once again. It is an honour to be your MP, and I will continue to be your hardworking MP regardless of which way you voted.

A central plank of my campaign was my opposition to the new Monklands Hospital being built in Gartcosh. I spoke to thousands of people across Airdrie & Shotts and you’d be more likely to find Boris Johnson on the telly with Andrew Neil than someone in this area who wanted Monklands Hospital in Gartcosh.

NHS Lanarkshire must accept that this election proves beyond any doubt that my constituents utterly reject their previously stated preferred option.

They must listen to the people and take Gartcosh off the table. If the leadership won’t, I sincerely hope the board will show that courage when the time comes.

The issue that dominated the campaign across Scotland was our right to choose our own future.

In every single interview Nicola Sturgeon, who was head and shoulders the best leader in this election, was asked about independence and we made our view clear – that the Scottish Parliament should have the power to set another independence referendum if the SNP won a majority of seats.

It was also the central plank of the Tory campaign in Scotland – the union was on the ballot paper, they told us.

The Tories were comprehensively defeated in Scotland. They lost more than half of their seats and their share of the vote went down, while the SNP gained seats from the Tories, Labour and

Lib Dems.

Scotland respected the result of the first referendum in 2014 – Scotland is still in the UK. And as much as we don’t like it, we accept that Boris Johnson won the election thanks to the result in England and has a mandate to deliver Brexit.

He secured 43 per cent of the vote and 50 per cent of the seats he contested. Nobody is disputing his mandate.

And yet the SNP won 45 per cent of the vote and 80 per cent of the seats we contested. Ours is as clear a mandate to have the power to determine our own future at a time of our choosing.

The prospect of a full five- year parliament with Boris Johnson leading a majority Tory government is also forcing us all to reassess our future. Leading Labour figures queued up for Sunday papers and politics programmes to say it would be undemocratic to refuse us our say.

We have an opportunity now to forge a new future that we control. I acknowledge and know perfectly well that people who voted for me did so for a variety of reasons – for the SNP, for independence, because they didn’t like Corbyn and for some people it was a very personal vote for me.

While some people are still to be persuaded by my long-stated desire for independence, I think the majority of people agree with the basic principle that it should be for the people of Scotland to decide our future.

It should not be for a UK Prime Minister, a Prime Minister who has been categorically rejected in Scotland, to tell us when we can and cannot exercise our democratic right.

And the greatest lesson for proindependence campaigners of this election will be to listen to the electorate and not to try to impose our view on the people. That is where Momentum’s Labour utterly failed.

We cannot shout our way to independence. We must listen, persuade and compromise to get that majority.

So I accept the mandate and responsibility I have been given, and I will listen to people who disagree with me.

I hope others in power will do the same after this most important of election results.

Winning vote Mr Gray retained his seat in Airdrie & Shotts