PM’S DEAL IS THE BEST WAY TO KEEP THE UNION TOGETHER

IN the 2016 Brexit referendum, I voted Remain. Tomorrow, I’m supporting the Prime Minister’s plan to leave the European Union. Why? Because it’s a deal that respects both sides of the Brexit divide: those of us who voted to stay in the EU, and those who voted to leave. Because it will protect our own Union, offering the hope we can all move on from a decade of constitutional division in Scotland.

And, crucially, because I believe voting for the deal respects the most important thing of all: our founding and fundamental belief in democracy.

If you ask people to decide on massive issues like our EU membership, you cannot then call for a re-run because you don’t like the result. Today’s deal honours the verdict of the British people, and the decision to put it in their hands in the first place.

I have a record in this. In the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum, I stood proudly alongside Ruth Davidson and others to oppose the break-up of Britain. I fought with everything I had to keep our Union together, But in a BBC debate when asked what I would do if I lost, I said something which Alex Salmond quoted back to me at Holyrood.

I made him a promise – that if he and his colleagues won, he could be assured I would ‘man the barricades’ and join him in fighting for Scotland to get the best deal as we left the UK.

It would have been incredibly painful and I have no doubt that independence would have caused hardship for Scotland.

But if that was the choice the majority of Scots had made, I believed I would have no right to oppose it. Indeed, I would have a duty to join with the SNP and try to make it work.

FOR both the independence and EU referendums, the same logic applies. We all agreed to respect the decisions made in 2016 and 2014. We all agreed they should be final, and honoured. We all have a duty to try to make the people’s verdict work.

It’s not just as a Unionist that I am furious with Nicola Sturgeon for demanding a re-run of the independence vote – it’s as a democrat too. And it’s as a democrat I now feel I must put aside my support for Remain, and focus on how to make our departure of the EU work too.

Last week, in the Scottish parliament, it was Scottish Conservatives alone who argued this case. The SNP, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens, by contrast, are all now moving towards a so-called ‘people’s vote’.

I accept their wish is borne out, at least in part, of a desire to remain in the EU: a wish I share. But I find myself unable to support them.

Their argument is that a second vote is justified because the Brexit being delivered isn’t the Brexit that people voted for. But, leaving aside the democratic case against yet another referendum, their excuses simply don’t stand up to scrutiny.

The deal brokered by the Prime Minister means we will regain control over our borders, and will stop sending millions of pounds every year to Brussels.

It brings back control over our waters and agriculture policy. And it will be the parliaments of the UK, at Holyrood, Westminster, Stormont and Cardiff, which will decide on our laws.

It isn’t perfect, of course, and there will be difficult days ahead as the deal is concluded. But the deal is largely in line with what people voted for when they asked to ‘take back control’.

To assume we could get something better from the EU is, I am afraid, an enormous gamble. More likely, opening up the deal means risking some of the benefits negotiations have secured – for example, on fishing rights.

After 45 years of membership of the EEA, it was always going to take time to sort out our new relationship with the EU. Just as with devolution, Brexit is a process, not an event.

So the claim people have been hoodwinked does not stack up. And nor does the claim the deal will deliver a catastrophic blow to the economy. By maintaining close economic ties with the EU, the deal removes the threat of the kind of hard Brexit that the SNP has warned against.

Why else would big exporters like the Scotch Whisky Association back it? Why else would Scottish entrepreneurs such as Sir Ian Wood support it too?

And culturally, the same balance is struck too. Britain isn’t going to pull up the drawbridge on Europe. EU citizens will have their rights protected. Britons living abroad in the EU will have theirs respected too.

Young people growing up in Scotland will still be Europeans and the Government has made clear it wants to continue to participate in exchange programmes such as Erasmus for good.

The deal sets the basis for a good and close relationship with our friends across the Channel – but which doesn’t tie us to their mast. It is clear that under President Juncker, the EU is set to go down a more federalist route.

Many powerful European figures, such as Angela Merkel, support the creation of a European Army. Even for a Remainers like me, I suspect these plans will find little favour in Britain and Scotland. Even those of us who did not support the path we are taking can see that over time, there may be advantages.

VITALLY, the deal will protect the most important Union of all – our own. Since the morning of the result, the SNP has been trying to use Brexit to gain support for independence.

With No Deal still a genuine possibility, I fear it may soon have a joker card to play: from the ashes of a chaotic Brexit, the SNP hopes to rekindle the dying embers of support for separation. An orderly Brexit would snuff that out. It would allow us all to move on – and leave the SNP’s hopes of exploiting the chaos of ‘no deal’ in tatters.

And move on we must. Of all parts of the United Kingdom, it is Scotland which has suffered most from the uncertainty of constitutional division.

More than a decade on since the SNP came to power, it has now become – like a dull and persistent ache – something we have grown used to bearing.

But it doesn’t need to be like this. Getting Brexit sorted means that businesses will have the certainty to invest again, and plan for the future. It will reduce the risk of another referendum on independence.

It will give Government a chance to focus back on things that matter: improving schools, creating a sustainable NHS, and delivering better jobs. There is a world out there we’ve largely ignored lately – and Scotland has what it takes to prosper in it. To parliamentarians of all colours and tribes, I say tomorrow: back the deal, and let’s get on with it.