Deputy candidate says SNP votes ‘crucial’

ONE of the frontrunners for the SNP deputy leader job has warned his party could vote down the UK’s Brexit deal unless it contains “special arrangements” for Scotland.

Tommy Sheppard said the UK’s Brexit negotiation would have to be approved by the Commons where the majority of MPs are against leaving the EU, making the SNP’s votes potentially influential.

The Edinburgh East MP also used the media launch of his campaign to issue a number of challenges to the SNP establishment.

Mr Sheppard questioned whether his main rival, Angus Robertson, the party’s Westminster leader, would have the time to do the job “properly”.

And he also argued party HQ control over what policy ideas were discussed at SNP conferences was outdated and its campaign structure was too centralised.

Mr Sheppard, a former Labour councillor who was elected to Westminster in the nationalist landslide in 2015, said the party’s MPs could vote down any proposal that did not reflect the fact that 62% of Scots voted to Remain in June’s referendum.

He explained: “Theresa May can serve Article 50 without going to the House of Commons but she needs to get the Brexit plan for what happens next through the House of Commons and there isn’t a majority for Brexit in the House of Commons, which she knows full well.

“So our votes in the House of Commons are going to be quite critical to her getting something through.

“I’m not a party spokesperson so I can’t say this with any degree of certainty but I’m pretty sure, and I will certainly argue, that unless the Brexit plan contains special arrangements for Scotland to allow us to have a different relationship with the EU, keeping our European passports while our neighbours in England and Wales lose theirs, unless that is there we will be voting down any Brexit plan that comes in front of the Commons.

“That’s something she’s going to have to take into account.”

Mr Sheppard said he 100% supported Mr Robertson in his role as Westminster leader, but added: “This is a different job, this is not the same job.

“This a job which is about getting our party match-fit for independence and because I’m a backbench MP I have time that I can devote to that and make sure that job is done properly.

“I would have to ask any of my opponents whether or not they can make the same pledge.”

Mr Sheppard said his party had a lot of work to do to get ready for a possible second independence poll but said the Brexit result had shaken up Scottish politics and given this project new impetus.

He said: “Independence is now almost completely aligned with a social democratic prospective and the left of centre of Scottish politics, and the opposition is now firmly rooted in the Conservative party.

“This a structural change in political allegiance in Scotland, the split couldn’t be clearer and it is to our advantage.”

The Edinburgh East MP also said: “The way in which we make policy needs to be overhauled,” describing the current method as “so last century”.