Prime Minister’s Questions: Eleanor Laing urges British unity

Speaking in Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, Eleanor Laing urges British unity citing Robert Burns’ poem “The Dumfries Volunteers”.

Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con): Today is the anniversary of the birth of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. Does the Prime Minister agree with Burns’s impassioned plea for the unity of our nation in his poem, “The Dumfries Volunteers”,

“Be Britain still to Britain true,

Amang oursels united;

For never but by British hands

Maun British wrangs be righted!”?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question, and the point she makes is a good one. Burns night will be celebrated not just across Scotland but across the whole of the United Kingdom and in many parts of the world. When I hear the Scottish nationalists, who are so keen to leave the UK yet so anxious about having a referendum, I think that perhaps they should remember Burns’s words when he referred to the

“Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie,

O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!”