IN an unprecedented moment in the UK’s political history, politicians in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly joined forces to reject Theresa May’s Brexit Bill.
The MSPs and AMs (Assembly Members), almost simultaneously, voted on the same motion calling for a no-deal Brexit to be ruled out, and to extend Article 50, so that "agreement can be reached on the best way forward to protect the interests of Scotland, Wales and the UK as a whole".
Opening the debate in Holyrood, Nicola Sturgeon said the two devolved bodies had been “brought together by our dismay”.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon's attack on May's 'consistent contempt for Scotland'
The First Minister criticised May’s handling of negotiations, saying there had been a lack of leadership from the Tory chief.
“She is trying to run down the clock, making undeliverable promises on an almost daily basis to hardline Brexiteers and, more recently, offering tawdry, half-baked bribes to Labour members of Parliament.
"Perhaps her one and only note of consistency in all of this, over the past two-and-a-half years, has been her contempt for Scotland and the position of the Scottish Parliament.
"Seemingly, Scotland is not even worthy of her bribes – although we should probably take that as a compliment,” Sturgeon said.
She added: “The UK Government has been buying fridges to stockpile medicine. It has been testing motorways and airfields in Kent for use as lorry parks. It has been awarding and then cancelling ferry contracts to businesses which don’t even have ships.
“It has been taking steps which should be inconceivable in a developed economy in peacetime. And all of it to plan for an avoidable outcome which, if it happens, will be by choice.
“It is unforgivably reckless.”
READ MORE: SNP demand answers on Theresa May’s ‘cynical Brexit bung’
In Holyrood, only the Scottish Tories voted against the motion – though Brexit-supporting SNP MSP Alex Neil abstained.
In his speech, Jackson Carlaw, the Tory party’s interim leader, said “the right decision” was to support May’s deal and leave the EU on March 29.
“The Brexit referendum in June 2016 was one of the largest exercises in democracy that this country has ever witnessed,” he said.
“The number of people who voted to leave was the largest number of people to vote for anything in our history.
“Although they have been largely forgotten in this place, let us not forget that they included one million people in Scotland – more than the number who voted for the Scottish National Party in the most recent Westminster election.”
Carlaw added: “I voted no in the independence referendum, and I voted remain in the EU referendum. I very much hope that I will never have to vote in another referendum in my lifetime, and I intend to ensure that I do not.”
Labour’s Richard Leonard said he was in favour of a People’s Vote, but said “that if there is still an opportunity for a General Election, we should take it, and that if there is still an opportunity to revise the deal next week, we should take that, too".
Patrick Harvie accused May of refusing to “face down her extremist wing” in the Tory party.
“We might have thought that the Prime Minister must eventually decide which wing of her party she is on – she cannot keep on pretending to be on both," he said.
"However, month after month, she has continued to put her efforts to ensure party unity ahead of the national interest, and is apparently deluding herself that everyone from Jacob Rees-Mogg to Dominic Grieve can be held to the same policy.”
In Cardiff, AMs passed the motion, with 37 for and 13 against.
Neil Hamilton, who leads the four Ukip MSPs in the Welsh Assembly called for the motion to be rejected, urging the Welsh government to "accept the likelihood that we will be leaving the EU on World Trade Organisation terms on March 29, 2019, and to now concentrate all efforts on preparing for this outcome".
Though the motions passed by the two devolved legislatures will have no effect on the Prime Minister's deal, the Labour First Minister in Wales argued that it would add to the pressure on the Tory leader.
"We cannot sign up to a proposition in which we would leave the European Union without a deal," he said.
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