Poorest in society will pay the price for Tory and Labour Brexit mess
by The UK government have been forced to admit that food, medicines and blood would all need to be stockpiled to prevent them running out.
Families would face soaring prices when shopping for everyday goods, and increased charges on holidays and overseas purchases.
While the many businesses that rely on crucial trade with our largest export market would see a huge increase in costs, red tape and bureaucracy.
The damage to the Scottish economy would be catastrophic – with a nine per cent hit to GDP, costing Scotland £12.7 billion a year or the equivalent of £2,300 for every single person in the country.
Around 80,000 jobs would be lost in Scotland alone, and Tory Chancellor Philip Hammond has admitted that borrowing would go up by around £80 billion a year – obliterating any chance of reducing the UK’s rising national debt.
Unbelievably, the new Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who made such a mess of the NHS in England as Health Secretary, has said it’ll all be ok because he thinks the UK will probably “survive” Brexit – as though we’re living through some kind of disaster movie and our best hope is to just about get by.
It’s staggering, and utterly irresponsible, that the UK government are even flirting with the prospect of walking away from the EU in March with no deal whatsoever – but the truth is their reckless plan for a hard Brexit, where we terminate our membership of the single market and customs union, wouldn’t be much better.
Hundreds of thousands of people across the UK would still face losing their jobs and millions of families would see their incomes hit and living standards squeezed.
Both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn know that leaving the EU will make the whole country poorer and worse off – and it is shameful that they are deliberately putting the narrow interests of their parties ahead of the interests of the country.
As ever, it will be working people and those on the lowest incomes that will be hardest hit.
Corbyn might claim he’s a socialist but there’s nothing remotely left-wing about destroying jobs, ruining our public finances, or damaging the incomes and living standards that ordinary families rely on to put food on the table.
The SNP will continue to provide the real opposition that Labour have completely failed to deliver. The UK government must immediately rule out a no deal Brexit, and the Tories and Labour must finally get behind our compromise plan to remain in the single market and customs union.
Short of staying in the EU, as Scotland voted overwhelmingly for, that is the best and only way to protect jobs and prosperity.