Anger at Nats’ ‘disdain’ over Bill

SNP ministers were yesterday accused of treating parliament with ‘disdain’ after MSPs forced through plans for emergency Brexit legislation.

The Brexit Continuity Bill will be fast-tracked through the Scottish parliament, with MSPs facing a final vote on it in only three weeks.

The bill, tabled as an alternative to the UK Government’s European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, has been condemned by critics.

Scottish Conservative Constitution spokesman Adam Tomkins said the legislation was ‘manifestly incoherent’.

Brexit Minister Mike Russell said he would hold the stage one debate next week, stage two in the chamber the next week and stage three the week after that.

He added: ‘In the absence of an agreement about a common UK approach and in the defence of devolution, this parliament must prepare itself to assert, if it has to, the right to legislate itself about the devolved consequences of EU withdrawal.

‘Without it, not only are we defenceless but our negotiating position as a government is severely weakened.’

But Mr Tomkins launched a scathing attack on Nationalists arguing that the Continuity Bill is ‘unwelcome, unnecessary and dangerous’.

He said: ‘It is the SNP who are treating this parliament with disdain in seeking to rush through controversial legislation, significant elements of which may well be beyond our competence altogether.

‘We are being asked to consider in haste legislation which the Scottish Government doesn’t understand, legislation which is badly drafted, legislation which is manifestly incoherent.

‘We are being invited to make bad law presiding officer and we’re being invited to make it badly. No thank you.’

MSPs voted by 86 to 27 in favour of treating the Bill as emergency legislation.