Michael Russell: Brexit and independence are two sides of the same coin

On Thursday the chief executive of the Scottish Fisherman’s Federation – previously the loudest supporters of the supposed “sea of opportunity” that Brexit was meant to deliver – said that the industry felt “very badly let down”.

“The government,” she added, “made repeated commitments and promises to the industry, and these were not met”. While on Friday the Scottish Farmer published a coruscating leader entitled “Europe was, is and always will be our biggest market”.

Earlier, James Withers of Scottish Food and Drink had pointed to even worse ahead, claiming that the current situation was “horrendous” while in my own constituency I am hearing of more and more small businesses which are struggling to survive.

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These problems are not teething troubles. They are inherent in being a third country outside the EU and things will get even tougher as the full agreement reached between the UK and the EU is implemented during the coming months.

The three concurrent risks that my ministerial colleagues and I currently meet on a regular basis to consider are winter weather, Covid and Brexit .

The first of those is about coping with the disruptive consequences of the unpredictable, and as we have seen this week, the NHS vaccination programme in particular has risen magnificently to that particular snowy challenge in the last few days. Every part of the public sector has assisted, clearing pavements, keeping roads open and ensuring that lifts are available to those who need them. When we are pressed, Scotland responds.

The second is about taking all the actions we can to protect our fellow citizens and their health service from an unexpected and deadly external threat while seeking to suppress and, hopefully in time, nearly eliminate it . That requires leadership, organisation, sensitivity and a willingness to learn, and we see it in spades at every level starting at the First Minister.

Food industry chief James Withers says the current Brexit situation is 'horrendous'

The third, however, is a crisis being consciously forced on us by people outwith Scotland. A government we didn’t elect and which is utterly unwilling to admit the folly of its self destructive actions is determined to have its way no matter the norms of democracy, still less this nation’s clearly expressed desire to at least be able to indicate our preference with regard to a different path.

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Brexit is both an existential challenge to how we see ourselves and our future, as well as the most glaring example of why continuing in the current incorporating Union is a very bad idea.

People sometimes say to me “forget Brexit – its done”. Those that aren’t just trying to do a snow job on the crisis, hiding its damage in the midst of the dreadful Covid recession, often add “concentrate on independence” but fail to see that Brexit and independence are two sides of the same coin.

We are as a government and as individual MSPs and MPs under an obligation to help our fellow citizens through the intensifying difficulties that Brexit is causing. No nationalist – in fact no human being with a conscience – can just stand by and see the economic fabric of the country destroyed by Johnson and his cronies.

But we are also obliged to point out to our fellow citizens that the ultimate solution to these problems cannot and does not lie in continued membership of a UK in which both potential parties of government have set their face against re-entering the EU and coalesced around policies which run directly counter to what a small, outward looking, innovative and energetic nation like Scotland actually needs

And to finally prove the point, how can we rebuild from the pandemic – the economic impact of which has been made worse by pursuing the hardest of Brexits right at the depth of the crisis – if we do not do so guided by our own principles, chief amongst which is ­co-operation on the basis of equality, and seeking to achieve our own priorities

All those things make the ongoing focus on Brexit not merely inevitable but essential.

It is not over yet.

The present row over the Northern Irish protocol is only the first of many fights picked by Brexiteers so as to disguise, or feel better about, their huge, deceitful deliberate, mistake.

The only way for Scotland to avoid being further dragged down by all that is to get back to where we belong, but this time as full members.