SCOTLAND’s future relationship with Europe is expected to dominate this year’s annual SNP conference, according to a draft agenda obtained by The National.
Brexit Minister Mike Russell and Stephen Gethins, the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesman at Westminster, have put down a resolution highlighting the benefits of EU membership for Scotland.
The motion asks delegates to recognise that “Scotland is a proud member of the European family of nations”; notes the protections EU law has given to workers, consumers and the environment; and urges SNP parliamentarians to defend hard-won protections.
It is one of 43 “potential resolutions” which appear in the provisional agenda. Calls for the devolution of immigration and demands that the Scottish Parliament’s responsibilities over fisheries and agriculture are respected post-Brexit also feature.
About half of these “potential” resolutions will be debated after the party has given delegates a say for the first time on which motions appear on the conference’s final main agenda. Usually a conference committee decide which resolutions are debated, but this year delegates will choose from the long list by voting via an online poll. The move is part of a bid to give the grassroots’ more of a say, as well as counter criticisms that the event is too stage-managed.
None of the potential resolutions published in the draft agenda mention Scottish independence, but the issue may still be debated as branches could raise it by including it in an amendment to a motion. Members and branches have until September 1 to propose amendments, after which the selection process starts.
About 5000 people will be at the party conference at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) in Glasgow from October 8 to 10.
The past few months have been challenging for the SNP, which lost 21 MPs at June’s General Election including major figures such as former First Minister Alex Salmond and former Westminster leader Angus Robertson.
The result prompted Nicola Sturgeon to postpone plans for a second independence referendum, announcing she would not publish the anticipated referendum bill until after autumn 2018 at the earliest.
Conceding she needed to “reset” her referendum strategy, the First Minister told MSPs she accepted there was no widespread support in Scotland for a second vote on independence before the UK leaves the EU. Sturgeon said her priority now was to focus on getting the best Brexit deal possible, leaving the timescale for staging a new referendum open.
Some experts believe the strong pro-EU stance taken by Sturgeon may have lost the party support after it emerged around a third of SNP supporters voted to leave the bloc.
There is ongoing discussion in the party about what sort of relationship Scotland should have with the EU and whether an independent Scotland should be a member.
The resolution by Russell and Gethins also calls on SNP MPs to “resist ideologically driven efforts by the Tories to scrap EU safeguards and structures in areas such as food safety, nuclear waste, health and safety at work” and “recognises the benefits that single market membership has brought our economy and businesses”.
A motion calling for full powers over agriculture and fisheries to be returned to Holyrood post-Brexit has been put forward by Fergus Ewing, Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy.
It says “any attempted power grab by the UK Government” would be “democratically indefensible”, and backs calls for the Scottish Government to have a seat at the Brexit negotiating table. A further resolution calling for immigration to be devolved notes that 181,000 EU citizens “play a crucial role in contributing to society, the economy and the labour market”.
On the move to give delegates more say about the conference programme, a SNP spokesperson said: “We’re always looking at new ways of giving members a bigger say in our policy development process, so we’re consulting internally on topics to be prioritised for debate.”
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