NICOLA Sturgeon has vowed that the SNP will lead the fight to stop the Tories’ hard Brexit “horror show”. Sturgeon said there was now a “more-than-evens chance that a hard Brexit can be stopped” in 2018.
Writing in today’s Sunday Herald, the First Minister hit out at the UK and Scottish Labour leaders for being “ambivalent” over a hard Brexit. She said Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Leonard were both unwilling to oppose the Tory plans. Sturgeon also attacked the performance of the 13 Scottish Tory MPs since their election last June. She said Ruth Davidson’s party at Westminster had failed to speak up for Scotland’s pro-EU majority, and the 13 Tory MPs were “lobby fodder for Theresa May” in votes on Brexit.
The First Minister vowed that her government and the SNP’s 35 MPs would lead the charge against the “Tories’ plans for an extreme Brexit”. She added that the SNP was the only main party opposing hard Brexit at Westminster and Holyrood. The First Minister said: “A new spirit of Scottish assertiveness is needed – and will come to the fore.”
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The SNP leader pledged fierce resistance to Tory plans to take Scotland out of the single market and customs union. Sturgeon’s intervention represents a stepping up of the SNP’s fight against a hard Brexit ahead of the UK’s planned EU departure date of March 29 in 2019. She said a hard Brexit would do “deep and lasting damage” to Scotland’s economy and public services. Post-Brexit restrictions on immigration would cause a devastating blow to Scotland’s workforce, she added.
“The threat of Brexit, including the prospect of a declining working-age population in Scotland and the inability to boost it through immigration, shows that the reckless ideology of Tory Brexiteers at Westminster is a direct and growing threat to our economic well-being,” she said.
However, Sturgeon claimed the Tories’ position had been weakened after Theresa May was forced to concede there will be no hard Irish border, in a deal with Brussels last month. The UK’s hard Brexit vision was starting to “drift from their grasp”, ahead of the next phase of talks with other EU nations, she claimed.
“The year ahead has the potential to be one of the most significant in Scotland’s recent history,” she said. “I believe that it will be a year in which a new Scotland continues to emerge – an emboldened, more confident and more assertive nation. That is perhaps not the most obvious conclusion to draw from the ongoing horror show of the Tories’ inept and chaotic Brexit plans, which threaten to do deep and lasting damage to our economy and society. But it is precisely because of that overarching threat that I believe that a new spirit of Scottish assertiveness is needed – and will come to the fore.
“The Scottish Government will continue to oppose Brexit in principle and, in practice, we will resist as fiercely as possible the Tories’ plans for an extreme Brexit, outside the single market and customs union.”
She added: “That vision pursued by the hard-line Brexiteers may just now be starting to drift from their grasp. Boxed in by the EU in phase one of the negotiations, facing the realisation of the importance of the single market in resolving issues on the island of Ireland, and with a business community ever more vocal in its opposition to the economic harm that is about to be done, there is now a more-than -evens chance that a hard Brexit can
be stopped. Both the Scottish Government and the SNP at Westminster will be at the forefront of efforts to achieve that in the year ahead.” Sturgeon also claimed independence “must remain an option” once terms of the final Brexit deal are known.
She stressed the SNP would lead mainstream opposition to hard Brexit, as she attacked Corbyn, Leonard and Davidson. She said: “Labour in Scotland profess to rail against Tory injustices while colluding in their London leadership’s shamefully ambivalent attitude to Brexit – and after having fought tooth and nail to prevent Scotland getting the powers which would help further mitigate Tory damage.”
Sturgeon added: “As for the Scottish Tories, their MPs at Westminster have done little to protect the nation’s interests, acting instead only as lobby fodder for Theresa May.”
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard dismissed Sturgeon’s claim that he was “ambivalent” about a hard Brexit. He said: “The Labour Party has consistently said that we are absolutely committed to action to ensure that any negotiations retain the benefits of the single market and secure the best possible deal for jobs and workers and consumer rights, and the wider Scottish economy. We also have to respect the results of both the referendum in 2014 and in 2016.
“It is insulting to the people of Scotland to suggest that this represents either an ambivalence towards, or support for, the Tories’ reckless approach to Brexit. It is quite the opposite. Labour will hold the Tory government to account every step of the way and achieve a jobs first Brexit that puts living standards and the economy first.”
Responding to Sturgeon, a UK Government’s Brexit department spokesman said: “We are committed to securing a good deal with the EU that works for Scotland and the whole of the UK. We have been clear we will be leaving the single market and the customs union, taking control of our borders and ending the jurisdiction of the ECJ.
“But we will also be seeking a comprehensive trade deal which is in the interests of both the UK as a whole and our European partners. After a successful December European Council we should be optimistic and ambitious about what we can achieve in the year ahead.”