‘Ignoring Brexit is making election most dishonest in modern times’

by the SNP
Posted on
4 months ago
3 min read

The headline above is not our words, but those of the former Tory Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine.

And he’s right, as debates over the past few days have confirmed.

Last week’s Question Time saw the audience asked “Who here is seeing the benefits of Brexit?”. The response was more than telling with Fiona Bruce saying “Okay. So none of you. Nobody.”

And we saw it again during ITV’s election debate in London when SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn described Brexit as ‘an unmitigated disaster’ and the audience burst into a round of applause. It was also observed that “snake oil salesman” Nigel Farage did not try to mount a defence of or even mention Brexit.

It wasn’t just the ITV debate in London that witnessed spontaneous applause on the issue of Brexit. On BBC Radio 4’s ‘Any Questions’ from Rutland, the audience again erupted into applause when the SNP’s John Nicolson brought the issue up. At the last election the Tories won over 60% of the vote there.

Despite this public appetite to have the disaster of Brexit addressed, Keir Starmer’s Labour and the Tories are silent on the problems leaving the EU has caused – and it’s been noticed by commentators.

The Herald’s Group Business Editor, Ian McConnell, accused Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak of ‘poor leadership’ for failing to address the problems Brexit is causing.

He wrote that both seemed “quite content to accept ongoing damage from the Tory hard Brexit”, and that Labour’s pandering to Brexit sentiment is “truly jaw-dropping”.

Meanwhile in the Guardian, Nesrine Malik writes that ‘there is a silent agreement’ between Starmer and Sunak on Brexit and that “silence is beginning to feel less like omission than an act of collective repression”.

She also points out that:

“Brexit’s consequences are now part and parcel of our layered crises. It features in the cost of living crisis – it has driven up inflation, accounting for a third of food-price inflation since 2019, according to an LSE paper. It lurks in the labour market, where higher immigration from outside the EU has not plugged a shortfall of hundreds of thousands of EU workers. It holds back growth, clobbering small businesses and choking bigger ones desperate for labour.”

So why are Keir Starmer’s Labour and the Tories ignoring the problems caused by Brexit and their impact on the cost-of-living, NHS and economy?

They don’t want voters to connect these problems with Brexit – because neither want to admit to voters in England that Brexit has indeed been an unmitigated disaster that must be reversed.

Everyone knows it was the Tories who imposed it on Scotland despite Scotland strongly voting against it; but as for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour, just like with so many policies, they have adopted the Tory position to appeal to right-wing voters in England:

By ignoring Brexit, Keir Starmer’s Labour is ignoring its effect on the cost-of-living crisis, the NHS and the economy. He isn’t offering change. He is offering more of the same.

He is taking Scotland for granted and thinks Scots will just meekly accept Brexit, that you will just give in to Westminster.

But Scotland doesn’t have to accept this.

The SNP stands for rejoining the EU. A vote for the SNP is a vote to reverse this damaging policy for Scotland and to really tackle the cost-of-living crisis, protect the NHS and repair the economy.

The choice at the next election is a continuation of broken Brexit Britain with repeated cost-of-living crises or a new Scotland in the world’s largest single market.

On 4th July, vote SNP to escape Brexit and return to the largest single economic market in the world, and ensure decisions are made in Scotland, for Scotland with Independence.