Leavers can’t afford to crow – it’s up to all of us to make this work now

Never was a national sigh of relief more heartfelt. At the end of a year that has been, by any measure, the most difficult in memory, the prospect of departing the eU transition period next week without a formal deal to regulate trade was an alarming one.

Just this week, as if to provide a foretaste of the kind of trade chaos that Brexit’s opponents have been predicting for four years, France closed off its borders with Britain, ostensibly to contain the new strain of Covid-19 discovered in Kent.

The sight of thousands of lorries parked nose-totail on the M20 as they waited in vain for ferry transport to the continent must have struck fear (or at least uneasiness) into the heart of the most ardent Brexiteer. Could this be a sign of things to come in the event that Britain failed to agree a deal before the end of the year?

After the historic agreement reached in Brussels, perhaps not. Trade between the UK and the eU, which accounts for 43 per cent of our exports, will not carry on as if nothing has happened; the failure of pro-Leave campaigners (including myself) to recognise this fact has done much to encourage unreasonable expectations. No longer being part of the eU single market and customs union will have consequences: it will mean more friction for goods travelling in each direction. The success of Boris Johnson’s deal will be judged on the extent to which that friction can be minimised.

Then there is fishing. Scotland’s coastal communities will be keen to see what the deal means for them, after decades of restrictive regulations imposed by Brussels, with UK waters being seen as a common resource by all 27 eU countries.

MANY voters – particularly Scots who voted by a 3:2 majority against leaving -–are still unhappy about our departure, even if they are relieved at the securing of a deal. That’s why it’s incumbent on leavers not to crow, to be magnanimous in the victory they have won, a victory which this deal has crowned.

All the political parties need to consider how they will respond to this agreement. Will the opposition parties continue to whinge from the sidelines about how everything would have been better if only they had won the argument nearly five years ago? Or will they help unite the nation around our new common endeavour, the task of making Britain’s new post-eU era a success?

In Scotland, we have the added complication of a separatist party leading our government, a party seeking to exploit Scots’ sympathies for the eU in order to hold another independence referendum.

Yet, there is a reason First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was desperate to hold her second ‘once-in-ageneration’ vote before Brexit happened, and certainly before any trade agreement was concluded. In the medium term, many powers currently held by Brussels will return to the UK, and those that are not explicitly reserved to Westminster will be repatriated to the devolved legislatures. Asking Scots to support independence so that those same powers can be returned to Brussels is not a task she would relish.

With a new, fiercely negotiated deal agreed, with new free trade deals with dozens of other countries already agreed and more in prospect, Scotland stands to reap the benefits of Brexit. The future belongs to those parties and politicians who recognise that.