Martin’s SNP plan warning
THE UK “will cease to exist” unless Theresa May is flexible over the SNP’s Brexit proposals, Scottish Labour’s longest-serving parliamentarian warned yesterday.
David Martin, who has suggested he might now vote for independence, told fellow MEPs the Prime Minister’s approach to negotiations with the EU had left the UK “hanging by a thread”.
Speaking during the European Parliament debate in Strasbourg, he said: “In September 2014, I voted to keep Scotland in the UK. In June 2016, I voted to keep the UK in the European Union.
“Today I face the reality that Brexit will remove my country from one union and leave the other hanging by a thread.
“Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU.
“Edinburgh, a city I have represented in this house for 33 years, voted 75 per cent to 25 per cent to remain.
“The feeling in Scotland is that we are being dragged out of Europe against our will – a feeling only compounded by Mrs May’s determination to pursue a hard Brexit.”
He backed the Scottish Government’s proposals – dismissed by Downing Street – to give Scotland a differentiated deal.
He said: “The council document calls for flexible and imaginative solutions to be found for Ireland. I agree, but ask why not also for Scotland?
“The Scottish Government has put forward an imaginative and flexible solution for Scotland. It deserves serious consideration in this house.
“If the UK is not flexible in these talks, the UK will not only be leaving the European Union. The UK will cease to exist.” ● Banks will need at least five years to prepare for Brexit and will struggle to adapt by the 2019 deadline, a financial lobby group warned yesterday.
The Association for Financial Markets in Europe said: “Affected market participants and supervisors will clearly need more time to prepare effectively for Brexit than the two years provided for by the Article 50 process.” NIGEL Farage was jeered in the European Parliament yesterday after comparing MEPs to the Mafia as they outlined their Brexit demands.
The former UKIP leader was heckled and told to retract his “unacceptable” remark by the parliament’s president, Italian Antonio Tajani.
Farage said he would instead brand them “gangsters”.
The row came as MEPs backed a motion setting out the parliament’s red lines for Brexit negotiations by 516 to 133.
The debate saw a string of senior MEPs insist the UK cannot enjoy “the same or better conditions” in its relations with the European Union after Brexit.
The EU said they expect the UK to pay £52billion in unpaid budget commitments, pension liabilities, loan guarantees and spending on projects as part of Brexit negotiations.
But Farage told the gathering in Strasbourg that the demands were “clearly impossible for Britain to comply with”.
He added: “You began by telling us that we have to pay a bill – a cool £52billion sterling – a figure that has clearly been plucked out of the air, effectively a form of ransom demand.
“You should be making us an offer we can’t refuse to go.
“You have shown yourself to be vindictive, to be nasty. Thank goodness we’re leaving.
“You are behaving like the Mafia. You think we are a hostage. We are not, we are free to go.”
He warned against forcing the UK to walk away from the talks with no deal, saying: “We don’t have to buy German cars, we don’t have to drink French wine, we don’t have to eat Belgian chocolate.
“There are a lot of other people who will give that to us.”
And he said a return to tariffs would put jobs at risk in the EU.
The vote was a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May, who wants to negotiate a trade deal with Europe alongside a “divorce” settlement.
She has also admitted that curbs on freedom of movement won’t come into force immediately after leaving the EU.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, said the decision to leave was “profoundly sad”, but that the UK must pay its “divorce bill”.
The motion also rejected any “cherrypicking” of EU membership advantages by Britain, and warned that there can be no trade-off between security and the economic relationship between the EU and UK.
The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, added: “We do not seek to WHEN Theresa May triggered Article 50 last week it started the clock ticking on two years to complete negotiations.
But the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has warned there will be just 18 months to reach a deal.
No negotiations can begin until the European Council – made up of European national leaders – have punish the United Kingdom. In fact, Mr Farage, all we are doing is settling the accounts. No more and no less.”
The parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, said the UK had recovered from being “the sick man of Europe” because of the single market.
He said: “There will be, one day or another, a young man or woman who will try again, who will lead Britain again into the European family once again.
“A young generation will see Brexit for what it really is – a cat-fight in the Conservative Party that got out of hand, a loss of time, a waste of energy and a stupidity.”
The European Parliament effectively holds a veto on any Brexit deal as it must be approved by a majority of MEPs.
Under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, a two-year period of talks with the 27 remaining EU member states lies ahead.
You have shown yourself to be vindictive, to be nasty NIGEL FARAGE
authorised the guidelines approved by MEPs yesterday.
The European Commission will then oversee the detailed discussions. The talks have to be completed in time for the European Parliament and the European Council to ratify, meaning discussions will have to finish by October 2018.