SCOTTISH Tory leader Ruth Davidson has urged incoming Prime Minister Theresa May to reassure the EU nationals living in the UK over their right to be in the country.
So far, May has declined to give any guarantee to the three million EU nationals living and working in
Britain, claiming their status cannot be confirmed before the UK starts Brexit negotiations.
At the start of the month, the Home Secretary told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “We are still a member of the EU – there is no change in their position currently. But, of course, as part of the negotiation we will need to look at this question of people who are here in the UK from the EU.”
Speaking at a House of Commons press gallery event yesterday after having met May and David Cameron, Davidson said she was looking for that assurance to go out to EU nationals “pretty quick”.
She said: “That’s an assurance that I want from the Government, and I want it pretty quick. It’s not enough to say to people who have come here and made a home here, and have made their life here, that we want your labour, that’s all we want.
“We have to be able also to say we want your brains, we want your culture, we want your passion, we want you in our country, making our country better, and giving these people security.”
Davidson also said the Brexit result was “testing this country’s sense of unity”.
“In Scotland, where people voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, the result is testing the binds of the Union as well,” she admitted.
Davidson also claimed the SNP were putting their own interest before the national interest, and that a second referendum on Scottish independence was “utterly unjustified and it is completely irresponsible”.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon responded by saying “contrition and apology from Ruth Davidson would be more appropriate” as it was the
‘irresponsibility’ of the Tories in holding the referendum on Europe that has brought Scotland to the brink of being taken out of EU against our will, with all the damage and upheaval which that would entail for many years to come for our economy, society, rights and place in the world”. Sturgeon continued: “Ruth Davidson also wants people to forget that she was part of a campaign less than two years ago which told people in
Scotland that the only way to protect our place in Europe was to vote no to independence.
“From her comments today, it would seem that Ruth Davidson neither grasps the severity of the situation we face – at the hands of her party – nor has she anything constructive to offer to the process of finding a solution.”
Davidson's speech in the Commons was close to the bone at times, with the Tory leader making a number of ribald gags about her Westminster colleagues and opponents in a joke about Labour’s troubles.
“Although I am pleased that the [parliamentary Labour party] is about to show how united they are by launching possibly a second unity candidate against the first and all this has happened in the time it takes Theresa to take the crown.
“And I think that’s the difference between our two parties. Labour is still fumbling with its flies while the Tories are enjoying their post-coital cigarette after withdrawing our massive Johnson.
“Sorry that’s not even my speech, that’s just a text from Stephen Crabb.”
Married, deeply Christian Crabb has been accused of sending intimate sex texts to a younger woman.
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