An independent Scotland in Europe
Over the summer recess I have been out holding regular street surgeries in and round Rutherglen, Cambuslang, Halfway and Blantyre, and one question that I have been often asked is why I want independence from the UK, but want to stay in Europe.
To explain why, first of all I need to talk about the European Single Market. This is, roughly speaking, an agreement and commitment between all European countries to break down barriers to trade across the EU. This includes the movement of goods, services, capital and finance, and people too.
It does this, in part, by ensuring that rules and regulations, quality standards and consistent enforcement of these rules happen across the continent.
Over the years, many in the press have used these supposed rules to bash the EU. Who hasn’t heard of the fabled regulations on straight bananas or composting tea bags?
But there are thousands of regulations that mean trade, investing, and working across Europe is consistent and fair for everyone – and these benefits affect everyone’s day to day life in Scotland.
The rules around employment and workers’ rights not only help to safeguard things like maternity pay, paid holiday leave and protection from discrimination and unfair dismissal, they make sure that all countries across the EU cannot undercut each other to offer businesses a workforce with fewer rights and protections.
If we all have the same high standards, then governments can’t use ordinary workers’ rights as bargaining chips to lure big businesses.
It means that companies can open new offices across Europe without many of the difficulties that would arise if countries had completely different legal systems, and it also means that British workers can move abroad to work for their company, or apply for new jobs elsewhere with little fuss.
This free movement of people means that our health and social care sector can attract motivated highly skilled professionals from across Europe. In fact, three per cent of our Scottish health and social care staff come from abroad in the EU, and six per cent of doctors in the UK qualified abroad in the EU too.
And it means that the 180,000 EU citizens who came here from abroad can continue to work, pay taxes and bring their skills to the overall economy.
Across the UK as a whole, UK public finances benefited by £2.5bn from EU migrants in 201314, and many British workers and retirees live abroad – each with access to healthcare and other public services in those countries.
After Brexit, even those who have applied to make Britain their permanent home with permanent residency will have their residency document cancelled. This will have a real impact on our public services, our economy, and on the money government can spend from tax revenue.
Having a younger, working population helps when it comes to maintaining our public services and our pensions by paying tax into the system. More people means more consumers, workers and business owners spending money and paying into the system.
Unlike some other parts of the UK, Scotland is fairly underpopulated and needs to boost its population to drive growth and pay for our services. Fifty per cent of our current population growth is driven by people moving here from other EU countries. In fact, if we stop EU migration to Britain, the amount of those aged between 16 and 64 will fall by nine per cent by 2039, and the number of those aged over 65 will increase by 53 per cent.
So, without European migration, Scotland’s population will get older, with more retirees with more care needs.