THE SCOTTISH Parliament has condemned the impact of a hard Brexit on Scottish supply chains during a debate in Holyrood.

MSPs debated the motion brought forward by Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Secretary Angus Robertson which “deplored” the UK Government’s decision to plough ahead with leaving the EU single market and customs union, and for pursuing a hard Brexit during the pandemic.

Robertson opened the debate by pointing out the “catastophic consequences” of that decision on key scottish industries, the poorest in society and those on low incomes.

Meanwhile, the Tories defended Brexit in an amendment and called for the vote to be respected, while Scottish Labour argued that breaking up political unions had “consequences”, but did not speak against Brexit itself.

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Calling for the introduction of a 24-month temporary workers visa and excessive visa fees to be reduced, Robertson revealed that he had lodged 19 requests with the UK immigration minister before they agreed to a meeting.

He told the chamber: “They said to people in Scotland that they had to reject independence to remain in the European Union, since then we have had years of Tory austerity, Boris Johnson has been elected as Prime Minister, and Scotland has been ignored and taken out of the EU.

“A hard Brexit has been imposed in the middle of a pandemic and today under Westminster control we have people queuing for hours in the search of petrol, there are even shortages of some foods.

“Our world-class food and drink industry, our universities, our manufactures and our service companies have all been hit by the Tory Brexit obsession, and the Tories are about to take £20 a week from working people on low incomes risking pushing 60,000 people in Scotland, including 20,000 children into poverty.”

The National:

Donald Cameron (pictured) moved an amendment for the Scottish Tories calling for the Brexit vote to be respected and in praise of the UK government’s temporary HGV driver visas.

Cameron, who admitted he was a remain voter, said: “As a veteran of many debates about Brexit in this chamber in the last session there was always a familiar pattern to them when it came to how the SNP approached the issue.

“There was always a denial firstly, of the democratic decision of the UK as a member state to leave the EU, there was always some scaremongering and precious little regard for the facts, and then finally and inevitably there was a call to arms and a statement that the way out of all of this somehow was independence.”

Sarah Boyak, moving an amendment for Scottish Labour which said “creating borders has costs”.

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She told the chamber: “Although we deeply regret leaving the EU, people voted for it, and to the SNP I’d say they know that many of their supporters voted to leave the EU too, so our amendment starts by recognising that breaking up economic and political unions has deeply damaging consequences and creating borders has costs.”

Neither the Tory or Labour amendments were agreed by the parliament at decision time.

Other members took to the chamber to talk passionately about the impact of Brexit in Scotland.

SNP MSP Neil Gray expertly laid out the hypocrisy of the Tories and UK Government over Brexit during his time to speak.

He said: “I struggle with the case for the union if the strongest argument is that the disastrous negotiation of Brexit is the best case they have for keeping the Union together.”

You can watch Gray’s argument in full in the clip below.

Michelle Thomson set out terrifying statistics on the supply chain, looking at an ONS comparison between the first quarter of 2018 (pre-Brexit and pandemic) and the first quarter of 2021.

She told the chamber how total trade in goods with EU countries decreased by 23.1%, while with non-EU countries this was only 0.8%.

Thomson dubbed this the “Brexit effect” and called out the Tories for trying to blame the supply issues on the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Tory MSP Liam Kerr tried to say that HGV drivers retiring due to the pandemic was one of the main causes for the shortage.

Closing the debate for the Tories, Liz Smith said: “We have a democratic duty as politicians to deliver what people voted for, even if we don’t personally like the results of the vote. Voters want us to focus on the outcome that works for them, I believe that they want governments to cooperate.”

Closing for the Scottish Government, Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise Ivan McKee clashed with Tory MSP Maurice Golden in a fiery exchange.

He slammed the Scottish Tories as “apologists for Brexit” who refuse to recognise the reality.

The Tory amendment was not agreed with 27 votes for yes, and 93 for no.

The Scottish Labour amendment was also not agreed, with 26 votes for yes, and 94 for no.

Angus Robertson’s motion passed with 67 votes for yes, and 54 for no.