DAVID Mundell reiterated controversial comments yesterday that he would prefer a no-deal Brexit to Scotland becoming an independent country.
His views were seen as extreme when he first expressed them on Monday, with political analysts suggesting he might come to regret them. But in a car crash radio interview yesterday, he said the same again.
Despite being pressed about civil servants’ warnings that supermarkets and hospitals in Scotland could run out of food and medicine if the UK crashed out of the EU without a deal, the Tory Scottish Secretary said he would still prefer that to the break-up of the UK.
Mundell was also asked whether the UK Government was looking at stockpiling food and if parts of Kent would be turned into lorry parks. Again, he refused to talk about those potential scenarios, and referred back to the comments he made on Monday.
He said: “I was asked a perfectly fair question about what scenario would I see as worse than no deal and I believe the break-up of the United Kingdom would be worse than no deal with the EU because in that scenario we would also ... see the break-up of our market. Scotland’s most important market is the rest of the UK ... four times as much business goes from Scotland to the rest of the UK than to the EU as a whole.”
During the interview on BBC Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland, Mundell conceded: “No deal is not a good scenario, people can speculate on what that might mean as there are a range of meanings ... What I am saying is that the Government is considering all the contingencies in relation to there being no deal.
“But it wants to stop there being no deal ... whether that is by accident or design. We don’t want to be in a situation where there is no deal as that is bad for Scotland and bad for the whole of the UK – and that’s why people should rally round the Prime Minister’s proposal.”
SNP MSP Stewart Stevenson said: “David Mundell’s comments make clear how fundamentalist the Tories are – they are Unionists at all costs, utterly blinded by their Brexit obsession and rabid opposition to independence. Falling back on WTO rules in a no-deal Brexit would be the worst of all possible worlds, cutting Scottish GDP growth by 9%, costing Scotland’s economy around £12.7 billion a year, and potentially losing 80,000 Scottish jobs.”
Tommy Sheppard, the SNP’s Scotland spokesman in the Commons, said independence would bring increased stability and certainty. “I don’t doubt there will be difficult decisions along the way but I think more and more people in Scotland will see the benefits and wisdom of being in charge of their own destiny and of making their own decisions,” he said. “There is no doubt at all that Scotland can take charge of its own resources and forge its own trading relations both with England – in a customs union in Britain – but also have a free trade agreement with the Europe. That would be the best of both worlds for an independent Scotland.”
Mundell was also asked pressed on whether his party would “come clean” on the money it has received from the Scottish Unionist Association Trust. He insisted all donations made had been appropriately registered and were fully transparent.
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