MORE than 100 days have now passed since the referendum on our membership of the European Union.
This has been valuable time for the UK Government to plan, evaluate and consult with others about the implications of the biggest constitutional change Scotland and the UK has seen in decades, and to formulate a clear strategy for protecting our interests over the months and years ahead.
At the weekend, we at last saw some movement from the Prime Minister. Not on her vision for the future but on her approach to negotiations and her proposed timescale for action. At the Tory Conference in Birmingham she decided to announce to her increasingly restless, Eurosceptic membership that the UK would commence negotiations with the remaining 27 member states about withdrawing from the EU in March next year.
The Tory leader has clearly calculated that the short-term political advantages of her statement placating her own party membership, including senior members of her own cabinet, outweigh the obvious disadvantages of shortening the timeframe for negotiations.
May knows that a shorter negotiating period will leave the UK in danger of facing punitive tariffs on exports and the loss of financial “passporting” which allows our financial services sector to do business across the continent if a deal is not concluded quickly. But this is seemingly a price worth paying to hold her party together.
I think it’s also telling that Theresa May chose to make her speech far from the scrutiny of Parliament, given that far more questions than answers remain about the Tories’ Brexit plans. A stronger prime minister or party leader would have been confident enough to face the House of Commons directly with such an important constitutional announcement.
It’s absolutely apparent that the PM intends to sideline both the Westminster Parliament and each of the the devolved governments of the UK in this process, and that’s bad news for Scotland, our democracy and our economy.
Don’t just take my word for it. On the back of the weekend’s announcement the pound plummeted to a 30-year low on the financial markets, while the Treasury’s own forecasts for the UK economy have built in a permanent loss of four percent of UK GDP after Brexit, even if we had access to the single market. The former Attorney General Dominic Grieve has also stated that it’s a mistake for the Government to proceed without the support of parliament.
At the same time, we’ve seen Scotland’s role in Brexit negotiations being downgraded from statements by the Secretary of State for Scotland in August that “Scottish voices and interests are at the centre of the negotiations”, to the crass comments from the PM on the conference stage on Sunday which spoke of “divisive nationalists” and how there would be “no opt-out from Brexit”.
It’s a far cry from Theresa May’s speech to the Scottish Conservatives conference prior to the independence referendum, in which she talked about a “future in which Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England continue to flourish side-by-side as equal partners.”
If only she was a woman of her word.
Scotland’s best interests will not be served by a flip-flopping Secretary of State and a weak Prime Minister who is being undermined daily by her own cabinet colleagues and guided by her own short-term political requirements.
While the UK is being forced into “hard Brexit’ by the Tory right, the remaining members of the EU have been toughening their own negotiating position. Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, reacted to the PM’s speech by tweeting that the states remaining in the EU “will engage to safeguard its interests”. The Irish Foreign Minister has been clear too, stating that the UK “cannot have the advantages of the European Union without carrying out the obligations”.
In these circumstances, the question is simple. Who do you trust to get the best possible deal for Scotland?
In the last 100 days, we have seen that the only political leader in the UK with a plan is Nicola Sturgeon. In this time her Scottish Government has held out the hand of solidarity with EU nationals who have chosen to live here, while cultivating positive relationships with EU institutions and the key players in Brussels and beyond who will help shape our future relationship with Europe. She has stuck to her principles and used the democratic mandate of the people of Scotland to make our case. The contrast with the Prime Minster and her Scottish Tories is stark.
There’s still some distance to be travelled on the road to Brexit, but it’s increasingly obvious that Theresa May isn’t in the driving seat. Her weakness is Scotland’s opportunity.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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