Scots Tories fire warning shot
May faces rebellion threat from her 13 MPs over deal on fishing and the Union
THERESA May is facing the threat of an unprecedented rebellion from her Scottish MPs over the impact her Brexit deal will have on the Union and fishermen.
Scottish Secretary David Mundell and all 12 other Scottish Tory MPs yesterday signed a letter to the Prime Minister warning they will not support a deal that fails to honour pledges made to the fishing industry.
Senior Tories also reiterated their demand that Northern Ireland does not get a separate Brexit deal because they fear it would play into the SNP’s hands and could boost the push for independence.
But Mr Mundell last night declared himself willing to ‘move to the next stage of the process’ of leaving the EU. Mrs May admitted the so-called Northern Irish backstop was one of the most difficult issues during yesterday’s fivehour Cabinet meeting. But she said her deal is ‘in the best interests of our entire United Kingdom’.
With the Tories already relying on the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party for a majority, any blocking vote by the 13 Scottish MPs could be catastrophic for her hopes of getting her deal through the House of Commons.
Mr Mundell, who signed the letter after being briefed about the contents of the proposed withdrawal agreement, has consistently made clear to Downing Street he opposes EU controls on UK fishery quotas after Brexit.
His decision to sign a joint letter – hand-delivered to Downing Street minutes before yesterday’s Cabinet meeting began – was seen as highly unusual for a senior minister and fuelled speculation he may quit
‘Expectations we must deliver on’
over the issue. In the letter, the Scots Tory MPs said: ‘You have made welcome statements throughout the Brexit negotiations that leaving the EU will mean leaving the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and negotiating as an independent coastal state from December 2020.
‘You said in your conference speech that anything less would be a “betrayal of Scotland” and we completely agree.
‘This has raised expectations in the fishing industry that Brexit will lead to complete control and full sovereignty over domestic waters that we must deliver on. In order to deliver on these expectations, we could not support an agreement with the EU that would prevent the UK from independently negotiating access and quota shares.
‘That would mean we would not be leaving the CFP in practice and would be becoming an independent coastal state in name only.’
The letter states that at the end of the Brexit implementation period in December 2020, the UK must be outside the EU and must ‘negotiate access and quota shares with the EU and other third countries independently on an annual basis without any pre-existing arrangement being in force’.
A political declaration published alongside the withdrawal agreement last night states the UK will be ‘an independent coastal state’ but says there will be a new fisheries agreement between the EU and the UK, including ‘access to waters and quota shares’. It says there will be ‘close working with other coastal states’, including on the issue of managing ‘shared stocks’.
Mr Mundell and Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson have both warned they could quit their roles if Brexit threatens to ‘undermine the integrity’ of the UK.
Last night, Mr Mundell said: ‘I was content to move to the next stage of the process on the basis that Brexit will deliver for our fishing industry – as I and colleagues set out in our letter – and on the basis that arrangements for Northern Ireland will not undermine the economic or constitutional integrity of the UK. I hope there will be agreement at the European Council later this month and we can move to a vote in Parliament. The worst possible outcome for Scotland and the whole of the UK would be a nodeal departure from the EU.’
Tory MP for Aberdeen South Ross Thomson said he would accept ‘nothing less than full sovereignty over our own waters’. He also raised concerns about a separate arrangement for Northern Ireland. He said: ‘I cannot in good conscience support
‘Cruelly stripped from this country’
any deal that draws a border down the Irish Sea, hiving off Northern Ireland from our United Kingdom and undermining our Union.’
Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, said: ‘We have been saying for two years that the only plausible way forward for the industry is for the UK to become an independent coastal state with the power to determine who catches what, where and when in our waters.
‘It was this sovereignty that was so cruelly stripped from this country when we joined the EEC [European Economic Community] in 1973, betraying generations of fishermen and denying them the right to a fair living.’
On the steps of Downing Street last night, Mrs May said MPs must accept her deal or leave the EU with no deal. She said: ‘I believe that what I owe to this country is to take decisions which are in the national interest. And what I firmly believe with my head and my heart is that this is a decision which is in the
best interests of our entire United Kingdom.’
Labour Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray vowed to vote against it. ‘This Brexit deal risks splitting the United Kingdom. The SNP is already using this to talk up independence,’ he said.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford claimed Mrs May had ‘been reduced to playing political games’ and said: ‘The SNP will never, ever gamble with Scotland’s future.’
Mrs May responded that ‘the SNP gambles with Scotland’s future every time it stands up and talks about independence’.
Scottish Tory chief whip Maurice Golden said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon has spent months talking up the merits of the EU single market. She needs to explain why it is in Scotland’s interests to fracture the UK internal market, as she seems to want to do. The rest of the United Kingdom is four times as important in terms of trade to Scotland than the entire European Union.’
Earlier, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘This proposed deal would be a bad one for Scotland, taking us out of a single market eight times the size of the UK market alone and posing a huge threat to jobs, investment and living standards.’
She added: ‘Our bottom line, short of continued EU membership, is continued, permanent membership of the single market and customs union.’