MSPs have overwhelmingly voted to reject Theresa May’s “clusterbourach” of a Brexit deal.
The vote, though symbolic, leaves Ruth Davidson’s party isolated, with SNP, Labour, Green and LibDem MSPs all backing a motion rejecting both the Tory agreement and a
no-deal Brexit and calling for a “better alternative”.
In an at times heated debate, Michael Russell, the Scottish Brexit Minister, hit out at his opposite number Adam Tomkins, saying it was clear the Tory was voting for the deal, despite knowing “how harmful this is, that this is a disaster for Scotland”.
Opening the debate, Russell said: “The only option that does not provide a solution to the current chaos of Brexit is that proposed by the Prime Minister.”
The current deal would see parts of Scotland “severely and permanently damaged” by a reduction in EU migrants, including his own Argyll and Bute constituency.
Russell continued: “In every area of Scotland there are businesses, organisations, communities and individuals who will suffer, directly suffer, over a long period of time if this deal is approved.
“Each and every person will suffer. The analysis we have done indicates that by 2030, if after leaving the EU we move to a free trade agreement, GDP will be cut by £9 billion – equivalent to £1600 per person in Scotland.
“So forget £350 million a week more for the NHS – the reality is £30 a week less for every man, woman and child with no respite.”
He added: “This deal is not even the end of uncertainty. That is just another false promise.
“In fact the uncertainty flowing from the Prime Minister’s deal would last until the end of the transition period, which will not be in December 2020, no-one believes that, more likely December 2022 or even later.
“That’s at least four years of uncertainty to add to the two and a half we’ve already had.
“Four more years of stagnation and lack of investment, with no guarantee that a free trade deal will ever be struck. Those are the fruits of Conservative government. More of the same and worse.
“More meaningless assertions, false claims, cliff-edge negotiations and economic lack of confidence and security. It mustn’t happen. Scotland needs and deserves better than the Prime Minister’s blindfold Brexit.
“For in truth this deal is about saving the Prime Minister, not about saving her country.”
The deal was, he said later, not just a bourach, but a “clusterbourach”.
Tomkins said the Prime Minister’s deal was the only credible proposal, and the only option on the table other than a no-deal Brexit. He said: “Either we leave the EU on the basis of the orderly Withdrawal Agreement that the Prime Minister and her team have negotiated, or something very close to it, or we crash out of the EU on a no-deal basis that would be a disaster for the economy.”
The Tory frontbencher infuriated MSPs from rival parties by refusing to take any interventions.
He said the motion put forward by the other parties was “just noise”.
“We want a better alternative, says the motion, without any clue as to what that alternative would be and how it could possibly be delivered,” he said.
He also accused the SNP of trying to “weaponise” Brexit as a tool in the party’s “endless pursuit of independence”.
Tomkins claimed the other parties had been hoodwinked by Nicola Sturgeon to support that pursuit.
“If it therefore turns out that we, the Scottish Conservatives, are alone in standing up for the two million Scots who in 2014 voted no to breaking up the United Kingdom, so be it,” he said. “Labour cannot be trusted on the Union and would rather get into bed with the nationalists”
In his speech, Labour’s Neil Findlay mocked Tomkins for refusing his intervention as well as those of the SNP’s Gil Paterson and Willie Rennie.
“So much for the great constitutional lawyer – afraid to take an
intervention from a bricklayer, a used car salesman and a Liberal Democrat,” Findlay said. “How timid is he?”
Though Paterson, whose firm Gil’s Specialist Coatings is a paint and coatings supplier, later intervened to say he did not sell cars.
When Tomkins asked Findlay to say what his alternative to the Prime Minister’s deal would be, the Labour MSP replied: “You have some cheek to criticise anyone given the utter chaos that you have brought in. We have set out our alternative clearly.
“The six tests that we set have been failed and we do not accept what has happened.”
He added: “Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister came to Scotland on her fantasy campaign tour and, with all the vim and vigour of her actual election campaign, she characteristically hid from the people she fears most – the voting public.
“She is the only candidate in an imaginary election and is heading for a landslide defeat, and when that happens, all bets will be off.
“Such a rejection will be an unprecedented failure of government and a personal humiliation for the Prime Minister.”
MSPs backed the motion 92 to 29.
Westminster will have its meaningful vote next Tuesday, May’s government are expected to lose.
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