A BOMBSHELL leaked Brexit document has revealed Scotland’s economy will “take a disproportionate hit” in Boris Johnson’s deal.
The 15-page file states low-value trade disruption could have a “more significant effect” on the Scottish and Welsh economies.
The SNP hit out at the findings, saying it proves Boris Johnson “simply cannot be trusted”.
Titled Northern Ireland Protocol: Unfettered Access To The UK Internal Market, the information first came to light when Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn criticised it after obtaining a copy ahead of a London press conference yesterday. The file, which was marked “official, sensitive” appeared to be a slideshow prepared by the Treasury.
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SNP Foreign Affairs and Europe spokesperson Stephen Gethins said: “Vote SNP to lock Boris Johnson out of office. He simply cannot be trusted.
“The leaked Treasury documents make it clear Scotland will take a disproportionate hit from Boris Johnson’s disastrous Tory Brexit deal. We already know that if Scotland is forced out of the EU against our will it will mean lower growth, job losses and a hit to living standards. And now this document talks about a ‘more significant effect on local economies in Scotland’.”
The document also reveals the impact of the deal on Northern Ireland, saying customs checks could “symbolically” separate Northern Ireland from the Union and see it become a “back door” into the Great Britain market to avoid import duties.
It adds that customs checks will be “highly disruptive” to the country’s economy. Small-to-medium firms, which account for 98% of Northern Ireland’s exporters to Great Britain, will struggle to bear the cost, with plans for tariffs on 30% of Northern Irish purchases.
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Johnson had said there would be no checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain under his exit terms – saying his Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay had been wrong to suggest otherwise – but the document seems to suggest this is not the case. Barclay previously told MPs that “some information” and “minimal targeted interventions” would be required on goods travelling between the two areas of the UK.
Gethins continued: “Scottish Tories promised they could never support any sort of special deal for Northern Ireland and they have spectacularly broken that promise.”
In a further blow to the Tories, the British diplomat in charge of explaining Brexit to the US government, Alexandra Hall Hall, has resigned, saying she could no longer “peddle half-truths” for a government she did not trust.
Hall Hall, the Brexit counsellor at the UK embassy in Washington, had been frustrated with the job for some time, according to friends and colleagues
In her resignation letter, Hall Hall wrote: “I have been increasingly dismayed by the way in which our political leaders have tried to deliver Brexit, with reluctance to address honestly, even with our own citizens, the challenges and trade-offs which Brexit involves.”
The letter was published by CNN, and its authenticity was confirmed to the Guardian by diplomatic sources. The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford described the move as “a humiliating and stunning put-down for the Tories”.
He said: “If even his top diplomats can’t trust Boris Johnson’s government, why should anybody else?”
It comes as MPs face growing pressure in the run-up to the vote, with many being threatened. SNP MP Joanna Cherry, a figurehead in the legal case against Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament, had her car keyed yesterday.
She tweeted: “I’d like to make something crystal clear to whoever keyed my car when I was out campaigning this afternoon. Nothing and no-one will intimidate or bully me out of going about my lawful business and exercising my right to #FreeSpeech.”
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