Leaving the EU: Implications for Scotland

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I appreciate your allowing me to leave a little earlier to attend to my commitments. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) for securing the debate. Because of the time limit I have had to hack out most of my speech.

We know that 62% of Scots voted to remain in the European Union, and I was one of them. I did not just vote but proactively campaigned for the remain side. I have always been a passionate European; with a German surname it is difficult to be anything other than proud of my European citizenship. I say that as someone who has both lived and worked in Brussels and personally benefited from the principle of free movement of people and labour. I remain bitterly disappointed that free movement of people became a major issue during the campaign, that the issue of EU citizens settling in the UK was weaponised and that such xenophobic language was deployed and normalised. For far too long in this country we have tolerated right-wing rhetoric around immigration—some parties have even gone so far as to put it on the side of mugs—and it has led to swathes of society viewing EU migrants as somehow a negative thing, especially in the context of low-skilled jobs.

The reality is that leaving the European Union and pulling up the drawbridge will be deeply damaging to our economy. My first frustration relates to migration. All the EU nationals who pick our fruit, who work on our factory lines or who provide support in our care homes are now shamefully being asked to pay £65 each simply to continue their lives here. For most of us in this Chamber, £65 is not a lot of money, but it sends a fundamentally negative message to people to effectively ask them to re-subscribe to being citizens and a part of our society.

My second frustration when discussing Brexit is the complete denial of the calamitous impact of Brexit on our economy. We know from the British Government’s own leaked analysis that Scotland’s GDP could face a hit of 9%; we know from the Fraser of Allander Institute that a hard Brexit is forecast to cost 80,000 jobs in Scotland, and we know from the Bank of England that Brexit has already cost constituents, including in Gordon, Ochil and South Perthshire and Stirling, £900 per household. That is why it is imperative that our compromise position of leaving the European Union but remaining in the single market and the customs union is implemented.

The stark reality is that, when we all walked into the polling booths on 23 June 2016 to cast our votes, there was nothing—absolutely hee-haw—on the ballot paper about leaving the single market or the customs union. People did not vote for a Brexit that meant they would be poorer, but I am afraid that is the trajectory we are currently on.

So my message to the Minister today is absolutely crystal clear: he should stop listening to the Brexiteers on his Back Benches and instead listen to businesses and ordinary families who stand to lose so much as a result of our driving over the cliff edge to a hard Brexit. If the British Government will not listen to the warnings about a hard Brexit cliff edge, they might find that Scotland has unhooked the tow bar and taken a different path of independence.