Mr. Michael Russell:

Móran taing gu dearbh. As the Chairman said, we have spent some time talking about this over the past four years. She describes Brexit as a generational event and it seems to have taken a generation to get nowhere. I am pleased to join the committee today. I am sad it is not in person as I always enjoy my regular visits to Ireland, which I have done all my life, and I look forward to being able to visit again as soon as it is possible and safe to do so. The work the committee is doing is of great importance and I look forward to reading its report in due course.

Let me start by stating two facts, one of which will be known to the committee and one of which may not be. The first fact is that Brexit is not something that Scotland voted for. The Scottish Government profoundly regrets the outcome of the vote in 2016 in which Scotland voted decisively to remain a part of the EU, and that remains the position in Scotland and, of course, of the Scottish Government. Neither can we simply vote to choose independence and to re-enter the EU. The constitutional settlement under which we live requires a vote in the House of Commons, as well as in the Scottish Parliament, for a referendum. It was never intended that this would be a political blockage but the current UK Government has made it one, and is resisting granting any such vote in the House of Commons. We are, therefore, in something of a limbo but I do not intend that Scotland should be in that for very much longer, and in my portfolio I handle constitutional affairs, as well as external affairs and Europe.

I entirely agree that the disaster of no deal must be avoided and the crippling uncertainty we are experiencing needs to come to an end. Negotiations are well past even the 59th minute of the 11th hour. However, even if a deal is secured, the UK Government approach means it will be a very basic deal, what I call a low deal. There is a problem in the language used to describe these things because “deal”, as it is used by Boris Johnson, seems to indicate there will be something to look forward to in it. Whatever happens, businesses will face significant changes in the way they function from 1 January. There will be disruption, there will be difficulty with some supplies, there will be dislocation in law enforcement and legal affairs and there will be problems for almost every sector of Scottish life in every community.

We have repeatedly urged the UK Government not to put Scotland or the UK through this in the midst of a pandemic but the UK Government has ignored that, as it has ignored much else. Taking the option of an extension to the transition, which was available up to the end of June, would have been not just the sensible thing to do, but the humane thing to do. What has been done is reckless.

In our interconnected world, it has never been more important not just to communicate, but to uphold the values that we share. That means the Scottish Government is determined to maintain our close connections, our values-based connections, with our EU neighbours, with whom we have clear and close political, social and economic relationships, as we have across these islands. Scotland will continue to be an outward-looking, progressive, internationalist country.

Our relationship with Ireland is particularly important. We are cousins and I am delighted to see this relationship develop even further thanks to the work of the Scottish Government office in Dublin and the Irish Consulate General in Edinburgh. We continue to work on bringing those relationships closer, and we are working with a view to the implementation of new procedures in that relationship. I also want to want to reinforce the Scottish Government's unconditional support for the Good Friday Agreement. We are committed to preserving peace on the island of Ireland, and any comparisons we make with Northern Ireland in the Brexit process are done in that spirit.

Whatever the outcome of negotiations, we have had to work very hard to prepare for what will take place on 1 January. As a result, we are doing significant work on mitigation activities.

It is still not entirely clear, for example, what will happen at Cairnryan, and what will happen in terms of goods moving across to Northern Ireland and through Northern Ireland into Ireland and the EU. There will be increased checks no matter what happens. Institutionally, Scotland's voice in these matters has been ignored. I have been a member of the Joint Ministerial Committee (EU Negotiations) for the past four and a half years. I am the only person who has remained on it for the entire process. During that time, the committee was charged first of all by the UK Government - it is a joint committee of the UK, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales - with approving the Article 50 letter and then having oversight of the negotiations, but neither of those things has happened. We did not see the Article 50 letter until it was sent and, in terms of oversight, we have consistently been ignored. Now, the Internal Market Bill, which is about to finish its passage through the House of Commons, will further damage the devolution settlement. The way in which the UK will seek to foist bad trade deals on the other nations of these islands is utterly unacceptable. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senate did not recommend consent, but there is a mechanism by which we can be overruled and we have been overruled.

Let me state what I believe is the bottom line in all of this. We believe Scotland is in the process of transitioning to independence. This process has been accelerated by Brexit but it is not caused by it. It is a process that has been going on for more than 100 years. All the recent opinion polls show a majority in Scotland for that, but given the nature of the UK constitution, that it is not an easy journey. We will attempt to mitigate the effects of Brexit. We will plan to work our way through those effects next year. We will have to acknowledge the reality of that situation, but we will also continue to plan and work for a time when we can re-enter the EU. I look forward to working very closely with Ireland in that process and to joining Ireland within the European Union, where small independent countries can flourish. It is a great tragedy what has happened with Brexit for the UK, but it cannot be allowed to define the future of Scotland and it will not be allowed to define it.