Thrown into complex issue

We get more done when we focus on where we agree

I think it is safe to say I’ve had a baptism of fire since arriving in the House of Commons.

I was appointed SNP Shadow Foreign Secretary and where that would be a big enough role to get my head around at the best of times was thrust into the

Iran crisis and the scrutiny, such as it was, that the House of Commons subjected the UK government to.

I bring an unashamedly European style to my politics. I believe that we get more done when we focus on where we agree, not on where we differ. I believe that we get more done when we strive for consensus, even if, perhaps, it cannot be found. When he visited the European Parliament, German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the European Union is based on the revolutionary idea that our opponent might have a point.

On Iran, an incredibly complex and fast moving set of events: as I’ve said, where I agree with the UK government policy and Scottish interests align with the UK then I’ll agree. It is in Scotland’s, the UK’s and indeed everybody’s interests to boost nuclear non-proliferation in Iran, and I think the UK has done well in working with France and Germany in the“E3” format to broker an agreement that was, with all its challenges, the best thing on the table in holding Iran to account over its nuclear commitments. I said so to the Foreign Secretary in the debate, I’ll not pretend differences exist where there are none.

Until the next day, when the Prime Minister, in a breakfast TV interview trashed the basis of the agreement, saying instead that“we should go for the Trump deal, he’s a negotiator of some renown, we should go for that” whatever“that”is given there is no other agreement.

So the hapless Foreign Secretary was called to the House of Commons not even 24 hours after his last statement on Iran to give another. I made the point that he appears to be getting more constructive engagement from the SNP than his own Prime Minister, and how seriously did he think Tehran takes us all right now? Speaking to a few of the Tories afterwards, the point landed. The SNP will support UK policy when we think it is the right thing to do, but how can we support a shambles being made on the hoof and undermined by a reckless overpromoted demagogue in Downing Street?

Scotland can do so much better than this, and it is the coming fault line of our post-brexit but still talking about Brexit world. We are seeing on a daily basis arguments about two futures: one, a Scottish European, constructive, pragmatic structured long term engagement with our closest friends and allies; and two locked in, essentially powerless, to a diminished and backward looking UK still struggling to come to terms with its place in the world but for the moment deluding itself it can still pull off imperial swagger.

The refusal by the current occupant of Downing Street that Scotland does not have a right to choose our future is utterly unsustainable, the smarter Tories know it. The 2016 referendum and events since have trashed the basis of the 2014 result, it is beyond argument there has been a change in circumstances. Imagine the brexiters’reaction if somebody in Brussels had refused the UK a Brexit referendum, fair’s fair. The Tory position will not hold, and Scotland’s voice will be heard.

I am in the process of setting up my team and office in Stirling. This takes time, and once this is done

I’ll be able to host surgeries by appointment. In the meantime, if you have an urgent matter that you would like me to look into, please contact me via email: Alyn.Smith.MP@ parliament.uk