Leaving the EU: Impact on the UK

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP) [V]]

East Renfrewshire was one of the areas of Scotland—a proudly European nation—that voted most strongly to remain in the EU. Nearly 75% of people in my community wished to remain and yet here we are having been shunted over the Brexit cliff edge, and now my constituents are paying the price.

While tradespeople and professionals are fighting to overcome barriers to working in the EU that they were promised would not be there, Make UK has found that seven in 10 leading manufacturing companies face delays with EU imports and exports, and Scotland’s creative sector, which has strong links with Europe, sees these links destroyed. The UK Government rejected special arrangements for the creative sector, and then negotiated so incompetently that they retrieved nothing from the wreckage. Whether it is artists or actors, architects or accountants, or those in the service sector, they have been badly let down.

Students in my constituency enthusiastically embraced opportunities offered to them by Erasmus, benefiting themselves and the wider community in the process. Just last year, the Prime Minister said that would continue, but instead current and future students have been failed yet again, with the UK Government chucking out Erasmus with no credible replacement in place—and, no, the Turing scheme absolutely does not do the job and will leave many of our young folk out in the cold.

Among my constituents are also many EU citizens, who play a vital part in making East Renfrewshire such a vibrant and rewarding place. They thought they were welcome, and they are—they are very welcome and our wider community feel that strongly—but they do not feel welcomed by this UK Government. Their needs come as an afterthought at best to the UK Government with their increasingly hostile environment. Is it any wonder that half a million EU-born citizens left the UK last year, undermining workforce plans in sectors as diverse as social care and advertising?

My constituents are deeply concerned about the impact of Brexit on food and consumer standards, and the actions of the UK Government give them every right to be concerned. Time after time—on trade and agriculture Bills, and the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill—Government Members voted to sign standards away and overrule the devolved settlement. The question is no longer whether this Government will sell out our standards; it is just how and when. There is no doubt whatever that the Prime Minister’s so-called oven-ready deal was half-baked at best.

In October, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said,

“there are many areas in which we can co-operate more effectively to safeguard our borders outside the European Union than we ever could inside.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 761.]

This prompted the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) to mouth “utter rubbish”. For once, I believe she spoke for all of us. This Brexit, the deal and the consequences are all, as she said, frankly rubbish. No wonder so many proudly European residents of East Renfrewshire are looking afresh at the opportunities that an open, outward-looking, independent Scotland will bring them.