Source of almost all environmental legislation in Scotland

standards, don’t like road schemes being held up by protected species or think that factories should be allowed to pollute more, we can make our own choices in Scotland and keep intact the laws we already have. The Scottish Government has already said it will keep our current laws aligned with European laws at the moment of Brexit. Crucially though, there has been no commitment to keep up with European laws as they evolve after Brexit. No doubt we in environment groups will press for a commitment on this, but the main pressure to keep up may well come from the business lobby, who will want to make sure they can continue to sell their products and services in the EU.

There will be strong pressures to do away with some European protections from powerful sectors in Scotland. Farmers have been lobbying hard to use bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides. The fishing industry has complained like mad about European fishing quotas, even though these limits are the only reason key species were not completely fished out in the last 20 years. In the Brexit negotiations the industry will be looking for a free-for-all deal that would see the rapid end of North Sea cod and decimate our marine environment.

The UK will no longer be part of the EU’s joint climate targets but will still be a member of the UN, so the UK Government will need to come up with new climate targets as part of 2015’s Paris Agreement. They will no doubt try hard to do as little as possible, which is a problem for Scotland as we are supposed to be setting even tougher climate targets this year.

When the UK is no longer bound by even the current weak renewable energy targets from Europe, the UK Government can pretty much give up entirely on renewables as it pursues the fantasy of fracking and nuclear power – entirely out of step with almost every other country in the world and to the great harm of a rapidly growing Scottish success story.

There is plenty to fight for in the environmental dimensions of the Brexit process.