SNP Opposes 'Rotten' Brexit Plan

'Inevitably Brexit has dominated everything else over the last few weeks. All 35 SNP MPs opposed the Prime Minister’s Brexit “deal” at an emergency sitting of Parliament on Saturday. It’s no secret that the “special advisers” the Prime Minister has appointed include some very hardline no-deal Brexiteers and he had used various dodges, including illegally closing down Parliament, to try and stop us having a proper say but MPs from across the House got together to force him to bring his deal back for approval.

The Prime Minister’s deal is a rotten deal for Scotland, even worse than Theresa May’s. It reduces the rights of every single one of our citizens, it puts 3 million citizens at risk of being deported, and it creates even more uncertainty for our businesses.

This is because if the “Withdrawal Agreement” passes, every trade deal the UK benefits from will cease to apply in just over a year’s time. Some of these deals will be replaced with new deals offering similar terms but they won’t all be ready place in time. Businesses who rely on trade with the EU, or on trade with other countries under EU deals, could incur significant delays and administrative costs that could threaten their survival.

The deal places Scotland’s businesses at a direct disadvantage compared to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland businesses will be guaranteed unrestricted access to sell their goods in Scotland but Scottish businesses could face barriers when they try to sell to Northern Ireland. The former Secretary of state for Scotland said this was a resigning matter but on Saturday he, and every other Tory MP in Scotland, voted for exactly that.

It’s no wonder that I, and most other SNP MPs, am getting regular messages from people who voted “No” to Independence in 2014 but who can’t wait for the chance to vote “YES” next year.

Solidarity With Catalonia

Away from Brexit, I led for the SNP in grilling the UK Foreign Office about their failure to condemn the ongoing persecution of politicians in Catalonia. Nine people, including politicians and civic leaders, have been jailed for a total of a hundred years for the “crime” of wanting the people of Catalonia to be allowed to determine their own future.

Millions of people took to the streets in peaceful protests – peaceful, that is, until the Spanish state police charged in with batons and rubber bullets, landing dozens of people in hospital. One man suffered a permanent brain injury after a police vehicle was deliberately driven at him.

The question of whether Catalonia should be independent from Spain is not for us to decide, only the people of Catalonia have the right to make that decision. But seeing a so-called democratic country in Western Europe using military force to crush the democratic process is something none of us can keep silent about.

As a committed European and someone who fully supports our membership of the EU, the leaders of that great institution should hang their heads in shame at their failure to criticise one of their members when it acts more like a Fascist dictatorship than a modern democratic country'.