Why Angela Constance must resign (judging by John Swinney's own standards)

When it comes to practical applications, all the cant about Holyrood as a high-minded institution which lesser legislatures (and one in particular) should emulate, evaporates. The golden rule for John Swinney and his friends is always to protect their own, no matter how egregious the offence.

As often happens, the mess which SNP MSPs will be required to debase themselves over, with likely assistance from the trusty Greens, is entirely of their own making. First, through their apparent refusal to acknowledge that grooming gangs might operate in Scotland, just as in other parts of the UK. Second, to misrepresent the views of Professor Alexis Jay, an expert in the field, in order to defend that position.

Third, and most inexplicably, when the Justice Secretary, Angela Constance, was caught red-handed and told by Professor Jay to correct the record, she instead perpetuated that misrepresentation until it was eventually exposed.

READ MORE: How much trouble is Angela Constance in and how likely is it she will be forced out?

The significance of the original offence lay in its motivation as part of a wider pattern – the constant search for Scottish exceptionalism. The narrative of Scotland as a society which celebrates diversity was not to be disturbed by recognising that bad things which happen – no matter the ethnicity of the perpetrators – do not respect borders, and have very probably been going on here.

In July of this year, in a letter to Labour MP Joani Reid, Mr Swinney insisted that offences identified in Glasgow were “of a different nature to the organised gang grooming observed in England”, a distinction that may have been lost on victims who have now spoken out.

Scottish Tory MPs at Holyrood were repeatedly told there was no need for any inquiry in Scotland which treated grooming gangs as a distinct phenomenon. In September, Tory MSP Liam Kerr lodged an amendment to the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform Bill which would have required the new Victims Commissioner to carry out research into grooming gangs and organised child exploitation – a modest request which fell short of demanding an inquiry.

In response, Ms Constance asked: “Is Mr Kerr aware of the work led by Professor Alexis Jay, who was chair of an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in England and Wales… She shares my view and has put on the record that she does not support further inquiries into child sexual abuse and exploitation.”

As has now transpired, Professor Jay was expressing no view on the situation in Scotland. Instead, Ms Constance was quoting from a letter which the professor wrote in January and which was clearly about England and Wales.

It is as plain as the nose on Mr Swinney’s face that his Justice Secretary misrepresented the view of Professor Jay, in order to justify the Scottish Government’s determination at that point to refuse any recognition of a grooming gangs problem. For the avoidance of doubt, Professor Jay wrote that the quote used by our Justice Secretary “had nothing to do with Mr Kerr’s amendment, or the position in Scotland”.

To be fair to Ms Constance, I seriously doubt if she has the wit to exhume an eight-month old quote, pluck it out of context and then weaponise it for her own advantage by falsely representing it as the view of a distinguished public servant.

That sounds far more like the work of a Special Adviser, aka a publicly paid party servant, of whom there are many within the precincts of Holyrood. However, one might reasonably expect even the least inquisitive minister to have questioned what she was handed to read out in parliament.

“That’s a very helpful quote from Alexis Jay” Ms Constance may have thought when it was placed before her. “But where does it come from and will it stand up to scrutiny?” Alas, if she is now to be believed, even this was beyond the boundaries of Ms Constance’s competence. Just read it out, she presumably reasoned, and who’s going to question it?

But just this once, someone did question it. On September 26, Professor Jay asked Ms Constance to correct her misrepresentation to the parliament. All she had to do at that point was make a brief statement to MSPs, correct the record and apologise – both to parliament and the victims. There would have been a bit of criticism and indignation but basically the issue would have gone away.

Who knows? Maybe that would have been Ms Constance’s preferred course of action, if she had been allowed by her superiors. Instead, she kept doubling down to the point at which votes of no confidence have, quite rightly, been tabled and her fate is in the hands of the Greens, while our sanctimonious First Minister of Double Standards protects her.

Mr Swinney is always calling for people to resign, but never from those who answer to him. Just a couple of weeks ago, he pronounced the position of Rachel Reeves to be “untenable” for allegedly misleading the public, though that ploy melted away when a senior official from the Office for Budget Responsibility directly contradicted the charge against the Chancellor.

"If the public cannot rely on the Chancellor being straight with them then I don't know how we can function in our governance,” intoned Mr Swinney. What now does it say about him and indeed his respect for the Scottish Parliament when Mr Swinney refuses to apply the same standard to his very own Justice Secretary?