A FORMER SNP cabinet minister has called for the launch of a “all-Scotland Brexit commission” to ensure the nation's voice is not ignored during talks on the UK leaving the EU.
The SNP's Alex Neil made the call as Nicola Sturgeon continues to press for a place for the Scottish Government on the UK’s Brexit negotiating team.
Theresa May has refused Sturgeon's request ahead of the start of the talks tomorrow between the UK and the other 27 EU nations.
However, Neil said a cross-party Brexit commission for Scotland would ensure the country could still intervene in the negotiations. The SNP MSP said senior politicians from all parties, business leaders, trade unions and voluntary sector representatives could sit on the body.
He said it should make demands over issues such as Single Market access, the right of EU citizens to remain in the UK, transfer of powers from Brussels to Holyrood and trade deals.
Neil said the commission could make direct representations to Brussels if the UK government refuses to consider them.
He said: "There should be immediate moves to set up a cross-party commission on Brexit – an all-Scotland Brexit commission. It could be led by the Scottish Government and opposition parties, groups from civic Scotland as well as representatives from the business community and trade unions.
"The commission could agree a list of demands over issues like the transfer of powers from Brussels to Edinburgh."
However, Neil, a former Health Secretary, said the launch of the commission should not be delayed now that the Brexit talks are opening
He said: "We need to get it up and running fairly quickly now that that the negotiations are about to start."
In response to Neil's call a Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Scotland and the other devolved administrations should have a seat at the negotiating table and it is encouraging that a four-nation approach has now been backed by industry leaders, in the form of the CBI."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel