Yesterday in the House of Commons there was a discussion about the loss of our membership of the European Union from the Scotland point of view. The people who took part with one exception were either Scotland MPs or the Government Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack who is the MP for Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland. The people who responded were all SNPs apart from Alister and one of the other Conservative MPs from Scotland and in addition the Conservative MP, Kevin Foster who is the MP for Torbay. It would be interesting to find out why there has only been a few contributions and indeed why the other political groups did not take part. It would also be very useful for a debate that focused on the whole of the UK as there are many of us in the UK who want us to review the decision for us to leave the EU.

As the image indicated there have been a significant number of locations that wanted to remain in the EU in 2016 when we voted and since then many other themes have emerged that means that our Nation should consider if joining the EU would be helpful for our Nation. Here are some of the comments. There were 6 SNP MPs who began the debate with the same question which were Marion Fellows, Angela Crawley, Martyn Day, Alyn Smith, Douglas Chapman and Stuart McDonald. Their question was

Whether he has made a recent assessment of the impact of the UK leaving the European Union on Scotland.

The initial response from Alister Jack was

There are many benefits of leaving the EU for Scotland. They include: the ability to agree new trade deals and strategic partnerships, controlling our borders, ensuring that regulation fits the needs of the United Kingdom, control of our fishing waters and the ability to improve the competitiveness of our economy while maintaining high standards.

So here are the first couple of following comments from Marion and Angela

Statistics from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs show that Scottish exports have plummeted by £2.2 billion over the two years since Brexit, which has already cost Scotland’s economy around £4 billion. The consequences of Brexit have been invariably harmful. What is the Secretary of State for Scotland doing to protect Scotland from this Tory-imposed act of economic self-harm?

Brexit has cost the UK £40 billion a year in tax revenue. That would be enough to fill the black hole caused by the Tory mini-Budget, along with yet another round of Tory austerity. Scotland did not vote for Brexit, for this Government, the last one or the one before that, so does the Secretary of State think it is right that Scotland should suffer due to his party’s extreme Brexit ideology?

Later on in the debate another SNP MP stood up, Philippa Whitford and she stated

My colleagues have highlighted just some of the negative impacts of Brexit on individuals, businesses, universities and public services in Scotland. There simply are no real Brexit opportunities or sunlit uplands. Does it therefore come as a surprise to the Secretary of State that a poll last year showed that 69% of Scottish voters want to rejoin the EU?

Obviously there were responses to these three questions and indeed there were several other elements that emerged. The whole of the debate can be obtained from here. It would be great for this to be opened by more MPs and indeed from a wider range of settings including the locations that voted to leave and the many locations that voted to remain.