Yes, extremists like that.
Mark Drakeford, Wales’s First Minister, summed up the position for many of us when he said last week:
“Over the last three and a half years, we have taken every opportunity to speak to UK ministers about the specific concerns we have on protecting and promoting the Welsh economy, providing evidence and proposals. The UK government has chosen a very different course. The mandate they have published means that Wales’ vital interests are not represented in these negotiations. When the UK government begins these negotiations next week—the most important in 50 years—it will be doing so on its own.”
As for Wales, so for Scotland.
Let me first tell members the extent of the devolved Administrations’ involvement with the document. I set this out in more detail than usual, to dispel any suggestion from the UK Government that we had a meaningful role in shaping its approach.
We received what was clearly a virtual final draft on the morning of Friday 21 February. That sharing, at least, looked like progress. However, the draft did not include the section on justice and security.
I am grateful to all the officials who worked tirelessly over the weekend to produce a detailed response, which I approved late on Sunday 23 February and which went back to the UK Government in my name on the morning of Monday 24 February.
At 8.30 am on Tuesday 25 February, there was a conference call between the UK Government and the devolved Governments. We were assured that our concerns were being taken seriously. However, when we saw the final document, a mere hour and a half or so before it was presented to the House of Commons, two days later, there had been some minor, cosmetic changes but the substance and the tone had, if anything, been hardened.
The devolved Governments are, once again, being managed, not engaged.
The joint ministerial committee on European Union negotiations last met on Tuesday 28 January, in Cardiff. At the conclusion, the three devolved Governments made it clear that they needed to see the legal texts and working papers that were part of the process of producing the negotiating mandate. That did not happen. The JMC has not been convened since then.
Consequently, we have not agreed the way in which the devolved Governments will be involved in the second-stage negotiations. Nor have we agreed how we would reach a common mind on any issue to be negotiated, although there is a proposal from me on the table of a three-room structure.
Not only has the final mandate now been published, the negotiations have started. Not only is that contrary to the terms of reference of the JMC(EN), it is contrary to the devolution settlement, because it is devolved issues such as agriculture, environment and fisheries that will be at the heart of the negotiations.
As the legally and politically responsible body, this Parliament and this Government must be involved in deciding what stance to take. My elected ministerial colleagues are keen to have those discussions and I am sure that this Parliament is keen to see the discussions take place—clearly, the unelected David Frost is not.
As I said, the section in the paper on justice and security was not shown to us. We saw it only in the final published paper. It, too, is unacceptable in tone and substance. The UK Government must respect and take full account of the Scottish legal system—our separate courts, prosecution system and police. To fail to do so would be a breach of not just convention and the devolution settlement but the basic premise on which the UK is founded, which includes protection for our legal system.
Our representations to the UK Government over the past three and a half years have been clear that Scotland did not vote for Brexit, but that democratic fact has been ignored, even when we have offered compromise. Indeed, in the introduction to the published mandate, the UK Government adds insult to injury by explicitly referring to the “unique characteristics” of the crown dependencies, such as Jersey and Guernsey, while completely rejecting any need for a similar approach to the ancient nation of Scotland.
The Scottish Government does not believe that Boris Johnson has any mandate, in any part of the UK, for a form of Brexit that was regarded as being on the lunatic fringe of politics even during the June 2016 referendum. That form of Brexit, which the UK now regards as optimum, is a Canada-minus deal—the most basic of free trade agreements. Undoubtedly, that will mean new barriers and borders, trade-inhibiting rules of origin, customs difficulties and heavy regulatory requirements.
The approach will have a severe impact on many of Scotland’s most important sectors. For example, the Scottish seafood industry, which in 2018 exported to the EU produce worth £696 million, will be severely disadvantaged by it. Scottish food producers will suffer and there are real concerns among the farming community about food standards. Elsewhere, even though services account for around 75 per cent of the Scottish economy, Scotland will be shut out of key EU services markets if the Prime Minister’s ambition is realised.
Although the UK document makes no attempt to quantify the economic impact of the UK Government’s approach, already-published Scottish Government modelling indicates that, if the UK Government secured a basic free trade agreement of the type that it is pursuing, Scottish gross domestic product would be 6.1 per cent, or £9 billion, lower by 2030 than it would be if the UK retained full EU membership. That is equivalent to £1,610 per person. The UK Government has also made it clear that it is prepared to walk away without a trade deal, which would raise that figure to £12.7 billion, equivalent to £2,300 per person.
In contrast, the UK-US negotiating mandate that was published on Monday attempts to quantify the potential economic impacts of a post-Brexit trade deal with the US, suggesting that such a deal could boost the UK economy by 0.16 per cent over the next 15 years. That would in no way make up for the damage caused by the UK’s approach to the EU negotiations. It is a distraction. Very significantly, previous UK Government modelling from 2018 suggests that there would be damage for the UK as a whole from its current approach.
Back in 2017, my then UK counterpart David Davis said that a comprehensive free trade agreement and a comprehensive customs agreement would
“deliver the exact same benefits”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 24 January 2017; Vol 620, c 169.]
that we have with EU membership. That was then, and is now, nonsense, but tragically it may soon be very expensive nonsense, with the price being paid by every one of us.
The impacts of the UK Government’s approach will not be simply about numbers. The loss of freedom of movement means that our citizens will have curtailed opportunities to live, work, study, travel and retire abroad, and it will lead to a serious long-term shortfall in the number of workers needed in our economy. We also know that the impact will be worst for those people who can afford it least, such as the disabled and people in remote areas.
We are also likely to be less safe. We now know that the UK is not seeking membership of Europol or Eurojust, or participation in the European arrest warrant or the European investigation order. There is no guarantee that the alternative arrangements that the UK proposes will be agreed to and, even if they are, those arrangements are likely to be much less effective than those that we currently enjoy. Those EU tools help to keep people safe and secure by facilitating rapid information sharing and effective co-operation between police and prosecutors in the prevention, investigation and prosecution of crime.
The UK Government is also lukewarm about the UK’s participation in EU programmes such as Erasmus+ and horizon 2020, and it has actively abandoned involvement in other cross-border programmes such as creative Europe. We are told by the UK that devolved Governments will not be allowed to take up individual membership of any European programme if the UK does not join as a third party. “Allowed” is a significant word. That is how the UK Government sees the rights of the devolved Governments—matters for which permission can be given or withheld.
The Scottish Government does not intend to allow that situation to continue. We reject the published mandate as it is, we will make it clear that if the UK Government attempts to speak on matters of devolved competence, it does not speak for us, and we will ask the Scottish Parliament not to agree actions or agreements if they have not been discussed with us.
We will also shortly introduce the continuity bill, which will give the Parliament and our Government powers to keep pace with European regulation, and we will do so confident in our right to take those actions in areas that are devolved. The extent to which devolved law aligns itself with the law of the EU is a decision for the Scottish Parliament to take, not the UK Government.
We will, of course, always be willing to discuss the negotiating position on devolved matters, if that discussion is meaningful and respects the devolved settlement. We will intensify our work to ensure that Scotland gets the right to choose its own future, and we invite every member in this chamber to endorse that right and help to obtain it. The delivery of that right is not the delivery of independence—it is simply the basic confirmation of democracy. No one speaks for us, and no one speaks about us, without us.
We are now entering an even more difficult phase of the Brexit process, which, if handled in the way that the UK Government proposes, will have severe negative impacts for the vast majority of people in Scotland. I continue to urge the UK Government to move back from its aggressive rhetoric and ideological obsession with delivering a very damaging hard Brexit, and I urge members to speak up for Scotland and to put differences aside to do so. The time and the threat demand that response from all of us.