FUTURE Scots will erect a statue of Michael Gove – for boosting the independence cause, the SNP’s longest-serving MP says.
Pete Wishart made the claim as the Tory Cabinet Office minister appeared before MPs to insist all is well with Brexit.
Gove provoked the fury of the Scottish and Welsh governments last week after he used social media to announce that the UK will not seek a Brexit extension.
That announcement came as the devolved administrations sent a joint plea to Westminster to push the withdrawal date back due to the economic catastrophe of coronavirus.
The UK economy suffered a record 20% contraction in April and new figures show unemployment is now at 3.9% – rising to 4.6% in Scotland.
And that’s before the current wage support schemes launched by the Treasury come to an end. The Treasury has spent £20 billion to support 9.1 million jobs through its furlough programme, as well as lending more than £38bn to companies.
As many as 600,000 staff jobs have still gone since March.
At the weekend both the UK and EU agreed “new momentum” is needed if a deal is to be reached by the end of the year, with French MEP Nathalie Loiseau stating that the EU is readying itself for a No-Deal result, “considering the circumstances”.
But yesterday Gove insisted there is still time to “bring a deal home”.
He told the Commons: “The UK’s political will is there, our position is reasonable, based on precedent.”
And he went on: “The Prime Minister has led the drive to accelerate these talks, to reach agreement and to ensure next January we leave the regulatory reach of the EU and embrace the new opportunities our independence will bring.”
Labour’s Rachel Reeves said Gove “knows full well what a calamity” leaving without an agreement and trading on less-favourable World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms “would be for our country”.
She added: “The Prime Minister staked his own authority on having an oven-ready deal, but today in the minister’s statement he said that we want to intensify talks in July and to find, if possible, an early understanding of principles underlying any agreement.
“That doesn’t sound like an oven-ready deal to me and is the cause of great concern to all of us. Yet the ingredients of such a deal were published and the country expects them to be delivered upon.”
And Wishart commented on how Edinburgh and Cardiff had refused to participate in UK Brexit talks last week after Gove’s announcement.
The Perth and North Perthshire MP said: “He, more than any other senior Tory, has made the single biggest contribution to the cause of independence in Scotland. And it’s been his supreme efforts around Brexit that has pushed support for Scottish independence to sustained majority support.
“For all of us that support an independent Scotland, we salute him today and the statue will soon be commissioned in Aberdeen Harbour.”
Wishart went on: “I’m sure all that nonsense and Euro-blaming he just spouted sounds like progress to him, but for us in Scotland it just confirms why we want to get out of their dysfunctional union.”
Gove, who was raised in Aberdeen, responded: “Can I first of all congratulate him on wishing to erect statues rather than pull them down. I would be delighted to be carved in marble bronze, or whatever is the appropriate material anywhere in Scotland, but I have to say I don’t deserve it.
“As long as his smiling features gaze down on us, the Union is safe. We know that the cause of Scottish nationalism, despite the ardour with which he puts his case, will sadly not prevail intellectually, morally, economically or practically.”
Brexit trade talks are scheduled to take place every week in July, when the UK Government is, Gove said, “looking to get things done”.
He said: “We do not want to see this process going on into the autumn and then the winter. We all need certainty and that is what we’re aiming to provide.”
Under pressure over what No Deal might mean for Northern Ireland, Gove told the House: “It is the case that we will push to secure a deal and a deal would be in everyone’s interests.”
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