By Kirsty Hughes, Director, Scottish Centre on European Relations
IT is surely a Brexit General Election: growth has slowed, retail sales fallen, inflation is up, and many firms are moving either headquarters, staff or both to other EU countries. The EU27, too, are getting tougher on Theresa May and her Brexit “illusions”.
So where then is the big Brexit debate in Scotland? So far it’s the dog that hasn’t barked. It’s no surprise that Ruth Davidson’s Tories are putting opposition to independence centre-stage while avoiding talking about Brexit – though the two go together. But Nicola Sturgeon so far has not been talking up the damage of Brexit either. Labour’s Kezia Dugdale is, meanwhile, rather hamstrung: Labour has accepted the Leave vote and rejected a soft, EU single market option for the UK.
That should leave the Liberal Democrats hoovering up the pro-EU vote, but they call for a second EU referendum after the exit talks – not now before the damage is done. It is all rather muted.
So will the SNP start to talk up their pro-EU, anti-Brexit stance ahead of June 8? Supporters are disappointed at the absence of a Brexit bounce in the polls. But last Sunday’s Panelbase/Sunday Times had some interesting insights. A straight question on independence got 45per cent Yes to 55 per cent No. But a choice between three EU/Brexit options changed the outcome: independence in the EU (41 per cent), independence outside the EU (10 per cent), and staying in the UK outside the EU (48per cent), that is, 51per cent for independence. It’s not a huge shift, but independence nudges ahead in this poll.
Of course, the SNP’s dilemma is in those figures too. If 20 per cent or more of pro-independence voters are anti-EU, then how to keep both pro- and anti-EU independence voters happy? The answer recently has been to talk less about the EU.
Brexit Minister David Davis recently shot down Nicola Sturgeon’s compromise proposal of Scotland staying in the UK and the EU’s single market. Mr Davis argues Scotland in the EU single market, while the rest of the UK is not, would imply “significant trade barriers” and “regulatory confusion for business”. This is, in fact, an extraordinary admission of the damage Brexit will equally do to UK-EU27 trade.
It’s symmetric. Either Mrs May and Mr Davis’s Brexit deal leads to the smoothest of continuing trade with the EU27, in which case an independent Scotland in the EU would be part of that smooth trade with the UK. Or it will create damaging UK-EU trade barriers – in which case an independent Scotland in the EU would face those too. This symmetry is tricky for the pro-independence side, as well as for the Tories, and may explain their reluctance to go on the offensive on Mr Davis’s response – although an eventual Brexit deal on a soft border for Ireland/Northern Ireland may help.
But if kicking the EU ball into the long grass or keeping Brexit low profile in the election becomes the SNP’s aim, then that gives Ms Davidson exactly what she wants – talking about independence but not hard Brexit.
The SNP and LibDems in fact have plenty of ammunition to use against a Tory hard Brexit – given their support for the UK staying in the EU’s single market, while even Labour supports, just, staying in the customs union. They can major big-time on the growing list of companies shifting staff to the EU27, the likely big negative effects on UK exports and gross domestic product, the loss of EU workers in agriculture, tourism, universities, the NHS.
The SNP could even do what it has avoided so far and back the LibDems’ call for a second EU referendum on the Brexit deal in autumn 2018. Kezia Dugdale, if she wants to distinguish herself from UK Labour, could do so too.
Making Brexit and the EU a central election issue means casting a sharp light on what a hard Brexit means, arguing for the UK public to change its collective mind in the face of a hard Brexit, and – in the SNP and Green case – arguing for independence in the EU. It doesn’t have to be treated as a neuralgic side issue.
Brexit is the UK’s most significant change of direction in domestic and foreign policy in half a century. This surely must be a Brexit General Election. It is the day job. If the election continues to be about the Tories against independence, and the SNP against the Tories, the biggest issue of our times will be left in the corner. All the parties need to talk about Brexit. And those against Brexit, whether they want to talk for the 48per cent in the UK, the 62 per cent in Scotland, or both, must stand up and make the case.
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