THERESA May and the UK Government are risking the Brexit timetable due to their slow progress on the issue, according to SNP MP Stephen Gethins.
An October 2018 deadline has been agreed with the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, before which it is expected the UK will have agreed an exit deal.
However, doubts about whether or not that deadline will be met were raised last week by EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker who said it would take a “miracle” for Brexit talks to progress quickly enough to persuade the EU to start discussing trade soon.
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That followed May’s speech in Florence the week before in which she stated – 18 months after everyone else had realised these facts – that Brexit would be difficult, complicated and likely cost billions. It was a speech seen by many as a delaying tactic in the absence of any real progress.
And as the Conservative Party conference began yesterday, amid yet another bout of Tory in-fighting, the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesman criticised the lack of movement on one of the biggest issues if not the biggest, facing the UK.
“With just a year to go, Theresa May risks missing the Brexit deadline, given the slow progress we have seen since the EU referendum,” said Gethins. “It can’t help that her Cabinet are not united on the issue, and her colleagues seem more interested in her job than getting a fair deal for the UK.
“As a priority, the UK Government must urgently guarantee the rights of the three million EU nationals living and working in the UK – our economy and public services depend on their vital contribution, and we cannot afford to lose them.
“Failing to provide a guarantee would be a reckless act of self-sabotage that could lead to an exodus of workers and an acute labour shortage – threatening the viability of our businesses, damaging our public services, and leaving the whole country poorer and worse off,” he added.
“Tory ministers have now had more than 15 months since the EU referendum to provide a guarantee, and it is utterly unacceptable that EU nationals are still facing such uncertainty – damaging their lives, and making the UK a less attractive place to live and work.”
Earlier in the day in an interview on Sunday Politics Scotland, Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson defended her position of wanting to remain in the single market, which appears to be at odds with that of the Prime Minister.
Davidson said that she and May wanted the same outcome for the UK, they just differed on how to achieve it.
“She [May] wants to use a free trade agreement as the way in which we get there,” said Davidson. “That’s the outcome that we all want – the entire Cabinet. I believe the entire country is united behind her in that and in terms of quibbling about the mechanism, then I don’t really think there’s much of a fag paper to put between us.”
Meanwhile, Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary Kier Starmer has challenged Scotland’s 13 Tory MPs to back his amendments to key Brexit legislation and help protect devolution.
He said that the proposed amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill would “help protect the devolution settlement”.
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