Nicola Sturgeon: We shouldn’t have had to battle with European law

First Minster Nicola Sturgeon poses as the SNP kick off the UK General Election Campaign Bus Tour in South Queensferry. Picture: Mark Runnacles/Getty Images

And the First Minister has insisted Brexit poses a “real threat to Scotland’s prosperity” as the election campaign reaches its final days.

Speaking to Scotland on Sunday on board her election battle bus in the North-East of Scotland, she insisted that a “democratic deficit” which will see the UK departing the EU, after Scotland voted overwhelmingly to Remain, underlines the need for a second referendum on independence.

The SNP is expected to gain upwards of 45 of the 59 seats in Scotland in Thursday’s election and pull off another landslide victory north of the border. Sturgeon will then dispatch a letter to the new Prime Minister seeking a section 30 order before Christmas demanding a transfer of power which would allow Holyrood to stage a repeat of the 2014 referendum.

Sturgeon says Scotland’s future belongs in the EU and wants a quickfire independence referendum to leave the UK staged next year.

But she has warned she won’t sign up fully to demands for greater political convergence within the Brussels bloc being demanded by leading EU figures, including by Emmanuel Macron. The French president’s plans for a “social shield” which would see a European minimum wage, tailored for each state, signed off by Brussels, do have her support.

But plans for greater military integration and a European defence force have been given short shrift by the First Minister.

“I’ve always been a proponent of European Union membership, but within that of appropriate subsidiarity,” Sturgeon said.

“For example, when I was health secretary and subsequently when I was First Minister and trying to take the minimum [alcohol] pricing through the courts, with which we were ultimately successful, I’ve always argued that we shouldn’t have had to battle with European law to do something that was right for our particular public health challenges.

“One of the strengths of the European Union is to make sure that we do raise standards in terms of workers rights and minimum wage would come into that, environmental protections, social protections consistent across the European Union. One of my big concerns about Brexit is that it leads the UK to a race to the bottom on these things.”

But she added: “There are other things that are sometimes argued for by people like Macron and others which I’m not supportive of.”

They would include the French president’s desire for greater military integration, she added, including a “real European army” and a shift away from Nato.

Macron’s call for a Europe-wide approach to dealing with major corporations who fall short on environmental standards, data protection and tax dodging are backed by Sturgeon.

“In individual national governments and across the European Union, I think there should be a much tougher approach to companies that don’t pay tax.”

Asked if an EU-wide approach is needed, Sturgeon added: “I think often it is because with an approach like that it helps to avoid companies simply moving their registered presence and profits from one country to another.”

EU nations are committed to closer political union and the SNP has faced criticism over the proposals to leave a political union with the rest  of the UK to provide  Edinburgh with greater sovereignty, only to hand this back to Brussels. The SNP leader has branded this a false comparison, insisting that EU states are all independent countries with control over the key levers of economic and political control to make their own choices.

But she does accept the need for greater EU collaboration to tackle major issues.

“One of the big things that Europe really has to raise its game on is climate change and because countries like Scotland, who are world leading in terms of this, our efforts are going to be more effective if you’ve got a consistent effort across the whole of the European Union,” she said.

“I’m not an uncritical supporter of the European Union, but I actually think… it’s much better to be in there playing a full part.”

The independence movement suffered a blow yesterday when a YouGov poll suggested support had slipped to 44 per cent, with 56 per cent opposing leaving the UK. It comes after recent months had seen polls split down the middle

“It’s one poll and all of the other polling evidence over the past year or more has shown support for independence growing. But at the end of the day, it’s not polls that decide whether we’re independent or not, it’s how people vote.”

The poll comes at the end of a difficult week for the SNP leader which has seen her accused of “failure” in government after the international PISA results showed a decline in standards in maths and science for Scots pupils compared other developed nations.

She has faced ongoing criticism over the NHS after fatalities at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital amid concerns of the water supply and pigeon droppings and delays to the new Sick Children’s hospital in Edinburgh. A further setback came on Thursday with the departure of the head of the Scottish Police Authority, Susan Deacon, citing concerns over accountability,

Commenting on such problems, Sturgeon said: “All governments face challenges around public services. Our public services have been subjected to a decade of austerity by Westminster governments which actually is an argument for taking control of our economy out of the hands of Westminster, but we have a government in Scotland that doesn’t escape challenges. No government anywhere does that.

“We know there’s pressure on health services all over the world right now. But we’re investing more, we’ve got record numbers of staff in our health service, we’re reforming elsewhere in a way that hasn’t happened elsewhere in the UK .

“Our health service in many of the key indicators, accident and emergency being one of them, performs much better than it does in Tory-run England or Labour-run Wales.

“It says to me that the SNP is getting on with the job of facing those challenges in a much stronger way than counterparts elsewhere.”

A deal with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in the event of a hung Parliament appears the most obvious route to a second referendum, with the Labour leader insisting he could be ready to back one, albeit not in the early years of a Labour administration. Sturgeon insists that if it becomes the price of power he will relent and agree to it next year.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vociferously rejected agreeing to a Section 30 order if he is returned as Prime Minister. The SNP leader says this is “unsustainable” but has declined to say how his resolve would be broken.

“Circumstances have changed since 2014 quite dramatically, Brexit now poses a real threat to Scotland’s prosperity and many other things we take for granted in Scotland. And it’s all happening or will all happen if it goes ahead against our democratic will,” Sturgeon insisted.

“So I think giving people the opportunity to consider the alternative to become independent – and I’ve never been the type of independence supporter who has argued that independence is a magic wand that takes away every challenge that countries face – but it puts you in charge of the decisions that shape what kind of country you are and I absolutely think it’s right for us to consider that.”

Talking of Thursday’s vote, she concluded: “These things are fought on what people want them to be fought on. The economy clearly will be a central issue there, but I think the Brexit experience also makes the whole question of the democratic deficit that Scotland suffers within the Westminster system right now an even bigger part of the argument.”