Brexit handed Scotland €3.5bn annual bill, says Edinburgh

Scotland has taken a £3 billion annual hit to its public revenues because of the UK’s exit from the European Union, the Scottish government stated in a report published on Friday (23 June). 

The £3 billion figure comes from forecasts made by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility which expects the UK’s GDP to be 4% lower in the long run because of Brexit. 

Elsewhere, the report points to rising food price inflation which has hit a 45-year high, stating that Brexit is responsible for an estimated one-third of it.

The report added that 44% of businesses in Scotland had named Brexit as the main cause of difficulties trading overseas while the staff shortages reported by 45% of tourism businesses in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, had been cited as a result of the loss of freedom of movement. 

In July 2022, the industry lobby group UK Hospitality reported 40,000 vacancies in Scotland’s hospitality sector. 

Scotland voted by a 62-38% margin in favour of remaining in the EU, the highest pro-Remain vote across the UK outside of London, and the government repeated that “the only way to meaningfully reverse the losses inflicted by Brexit and ensure we have a seat at the table of the world’s most powerful union of nations is for an independent Scotland to re-join the EU.” 

“We are committed to joining the European Union as an independent country,” it added. 

The pro-independence Scottish National Party administration has demanded a new independence referendum, vowing to use the national UK general election, due in 2024, as a de facto plebiscite should the Conservative government in Westminster block a referendum. 

The government in Edinburgh has complained that its economy, which is particularly reliant on tourism, has been badly hit by the loss of freedom of movement and the UK’s new rules on economic migrants. The minimum income threshold set by Boris Johnson’s government is higher than the average wage for thousands of tourist industry jobs, many of which are also seasonal. 

The Scottish government has called for immigration policy to become a devolved policy issue to allow it to tailor its own migration rules, a demand which has been rejected by Westminster. 

Friday marked the seventh anniversary of the Brexit referendum, prompting the publication of a rash of new opinion polls on the attitudes of UK voters towards EU membership and closer ties with the bloc. 

According to a poll published by the Tony Blair Institute, 78% now want a closer relationship with the EU, including 71% of Leave voters.

The poll also suggests that 56% of people want the UK to at least rejoin the single market, with 43% favouring rejoining the EU in full, and 13% favouring a return to the single market. 

The tracker poll run by YouGov, meanwhile, indicates that 58% of Britons would vote to rejoin the EU should a new referendum be held. 

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

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