Scotland might try to wrest control over migration as part of a new enhanced devolution deal once Britain leaves the EU, Scotland’s minister for EU negotiations said on Friday.
Britain’s vote in June to quit the EU has put renewed strain on the 309-year union between England and Scotland, barely two years after a referendum in which Scots rejected independence.
Scotland voted in the June 23 referendum to stay in the EU, while England voted to leave, partly due to concerns over large-scale immigration from other EU countries. British Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to launch the two-year legal process of Brexit by the end of March next year.
Immigration is one area where the British government has leeway to accommodate Scotland’s different economic and demographic needs within a new constitutional setup, Scottish Minister for UK Negotiations on Scotland’s Place in Europe Michael Russell said in an interview on the sidelines of a conference of his Scottish National Party (SNP).
“Free movement of people, technically, is reserved [for the national government], but actually it’s vitally important for us,” said Russell, who is charged with trying to ensure that London respects Scottish interests in the Brexit negotiations.
“You don’t need a hard border [between England and Scotland], you just have to make sure that people don’t have the same entitlements on one soil and on another,” said Russell, a pro-EU minister in the devolved Scottish government in Edinburgh.
Scotland, the sparsely populated northernmost part of the UK, says it needs immigrants to shore up its economy and boost skills in remote rural areas. The pro-independence SNP has criticized May’s government for trying to limit immigration.
However, the number of migrants entering the UK from the EU is perceived as a problem in much of England, which is much more densely populated and where May’s ruling Conservatives have their voter base. England has 53 million of the UK’s total 63 million people, while Scotland has only 5 million.
Russell did not explain how Britain might accommodate two separate migration policies. The UK government would be concerned about the possibility of EU workers using Scotland as a springboard into the rest of the country.
There are already concerns that customs checkpoints and passport controls might have to be introduced on the border between Ireland, an EU member, and the British province of Northern Ireland after Brexit.
Scots have been irked by recent comments of UK ministers suggesting that Britain could leave the EU’s single market for goods and services in return for reimposing control over its borders. The comments have driven the pound to fresh lows.
Scotland hopes to retain free access to the single market in recognition of its voters’ desire to stay in the EU, something Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says is “vital” to business.
The idea that Scotland could retain single market membership, or as many elements of it as possible, was floated at the SNP conference on Thursday.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
The Philippine Coast Guard yesterday said it deployed aircraft to issue radio warnings to a Chinese research ship in a disputed area of the South China Sea “swarming” with vessels from Beijing’s so-called maritime militia. The research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 33 (向陽紅33), which is capable of supporting submersible craft, was operating near a reef in the contested Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The Chinese ship was deploying a service boat toward the Spratly’s Iroquois Reef on Wednesday when it was spotted by a coast guard plane, “confirming ongoing unauthorized [marine scientific research]
RSS