PAISLEY’S MSP CALLS ON PM TO RULE OUT NO DEAL AND COMMIT TO SECOND EU REFERENDUM

Paisley’s MSP, George Adam has joined with colleagues from across the party divide to oppose Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal and call for the threat of No-Deal to be taken off the table.

Speaking in the chamber during a Scottish Government debate on EU withdrawal negotiations, MSPs from the SNP, Scottish Labour, Green Party and the Liberal Democrats highlighted the growing support across Scotland for an extension to the Article 50 process to avoid a No-Deal scenario on 29th March.

In a historic move, politicians at the Welsh Assembly joined forces with Holyrood to debate the same motion simultaneously. Scottish Brexit Secretary Mike Russell said the unprecedented event sent a “strong message to the UK government that it must stop pursing such a disastrous course of action”.

Political commentators have suggested there is currently no prospect of the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal being passed by MPs at Westminster at the second attempt scheduled for 12th March – just 17 days before the UK is set to crash out of the EU.

Research has shown that Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal would lead to a 6% fall in GDP by 2031, costing each person in Scotland £1,600.

Speaking in the debate, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said:

“No-Deal should be definitively ruled out – and today, from Edinburgh and Cardiff, we demand that it is.

“The deal on the table guarantees more years of uncertainty during which Scotland’s interests will be at the mercy of a vicious, and seemingly never-ending, Tory civil war – one where the extreme Brexiteers are currently in the ascendancy.

“The preferable alternative option, in my view, is now a second EU referendum. After all, nobody voting to leave the EU knew precisely what they were voting for – the leave campaign was deliberately vague, some may say deceitful, about the form Brexit would take.”

Last month, a report from the Chief Economic Advisor to Scotland warned that a No-Deal Brexit would expose up to [X%] of [Area’s] workforce to economic shock and possible job losses.

George Adam MSP said:

“The current Withdrawal Agreement means Scotland faces being taken out of the EU against our democratic wishes, taken out of the Single Market against our economic interests, and cut off from our European friends and neighbours against our will.

“This is something the SNP are not okay with, and we have made that fact blatantly clear since the day and hour the Brexit process began. Nevertheless, we have repeatedly been ignored and sidelined.

“The Westminster Government have handled the Brexit process deplorably since the moment the referendum result was announced, and just when you begin to think enough is surely enough; the cycle of broken promises, disappointment and confusion only continues to spin out of control.

“Scotland deserves better than this.”