SNP anger as May rejects Sturgeon plea over Brexit
PM rules out Scots option just hours after First Minister unveils plan to stay in single market
THERESA May has ruled out any “differential arrangement” for Scotland in the Brexit negotiations, delivering her rejection just three hours after Nicola Sturgeon placed a separate Scottish deal at the heart of her own EU strategy.
The Prime Minister’s swift dismissal of the Scottish Government’s proposals – which had take months to prepare, and had involved consultations with leading experts – prompted an angry response from one senior SNP politician.
Pete Wishart MP said: “I was surprised and disappointed by her response as she previously charged the Scottish Government to come up with its own proposals and said she would take them seriously.
“For a UK Government that has produced no plans of its own, I’m sure the people of Scotland would expect our proposals to be given full consideration and a positive response.”
Meanwhile, Kenny MacAskill, the former justice secretary, has argued the time has come for the First Minister to “unharness” the issue of a second independence referendum from membership of the European Union.
Writing in The Herald, he says: “Independence in the EU may well now be less popular than independence. Many of the most ardent Yes voters were also Leave supporters. Others who were Yes, such as me, and supported Remain, query just where the EU is heading … It no longer looks such a safe haven.”
Ms Sturgeon used an 11am press conference to launch the Government’s EU options paper, Scotland’s Place In Europe. But, by mid-afternoon, Mrs May said that while she welcomed its “contribution to the debate”, the UK Government was intent on presenting a “full UK view” as the country began its two-year divorce from the Brussels bloc.
Appearing before the House of Commons Liaison Committee, the PM was asked by Mr Wishart, who chairs the Scottish Affairs Committee, about the prospect of having “differential arrangements” within the UK Government’s Brexit strategy for business sectors as well as the nations of the UK.
She told the Perth MP: “What we will be negotiating is a United Kingdom approach and a United Kingdom relationship with the European Union. You have assumed an acceptance of differential relationships but I don’t think it is right to accept [them].”
Mrs May added she saw “no need” for a second independence referendum, saying Scottish voters had given their view in 2014. She then added: “But I would go further and make this point – if Scotland … were to become independent, not only would it no longer be a member of the EU, it would no longer be a member of the single market of the EU and it would no longer be a member of the single market of the UK, which is worth four times as much to Scotland as the single market of the EU.”
Ms Sturgeon said her paper, drawn up with the aid of her council of 19 advisers, was a “serious and genuine attempt” to “unify the country around a clear plan”.
While the primary option was for the UK as a whole to remain within the European single market and the customs union, the FM said she had to accept, reluctantly, that “as things stand, that seems an unlikely outcome”.
The secondary option was for Scotland to remain in the single market as the rest of the UK left it, with new powers over immigration, trade and employment law accruing to Holyrood.
Acknowledging that having a “differentiated option” for Scotland would be challenging, she nonetheless pointed to how there already existed examples of such arrangements across the EU.
“It will also be necessary to take a flexible approach in relation to Northern Ireland and Gibraltar,” she argued.
However, a member of her advisory council, Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think tank, noted: “Legally, politically, technically, it’s extremely difficult for Scotland to stay in the single market if the UK as a whole does not.”
Scottish Conservatives’ leader Ruth Davidson said: “She should be pulling together with other parts of the UK, not trying to split the country up.”
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said if Ms Sturgeon sincerely wanted to unite Scotland she should rule out another independence referendum.
Willie Rennie, for the Scottish LibDems, dismissed the paper as an “expensive exercise in window-dressing”. believe was used to kill a Polish truck driver who was supposed to be delivering the steel beams the truck was carrying.
German authorities said the attack was an “act of terrorism” that had all the hallmarks of Islamic extremism.
But they admitted: “We may still have a dangerous criminal out there.”
Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas De Maiziere was cautious about the claim made by IS, adding: “This alleged claim of responsibility of the so-called Islamic State, which in reality is nothing but a gang of terrorists, only just came in. Until then there wasn’t any claim.”
Berliners were urged to remain “particularly vigilant” and to report “suspicious movement” to a special hotline.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the country must not allow itself “to be paralysed by terror. Although this might be difficult in these hours, but we will find a strength to continue living life as we want to live it in Germany, in freedom and openness and together”.
She added it would be “particularly hard for us all to bear if it were confirmed
a person committed this act who asked for protection and asylum in Germany.
“This would be particularly sickening for the many, many Germans who work to help refugees every day and for the many people who really need our help and are making an effort to integrate in our country.”
A news agency associated with IS was reported to have described the killer as a “soldier of the Islamic State”. It said: “The executor of the operation in Berlin is a soldier of the Islamic State and he executed the operation in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition countries.”
German officials reacted cautiously, saying “several lines of investigation” were being pursued.
The lorry’s usual driver was Lukasz Urban, a Polish citizen. He was found dead on the passenger seat and had reportedly been shot and stabbed as it was hijacked by the unknown terrorist.