Voting Remain

This Thursday, 23rd June, I will be voting for Scotland to Remain in the European Union and I urge you to do the same.

It will probably come as no surprise that as an SNP MSP what I want to see is an independent Scotland within the EU.  Independence in Europe makes sense to me, and to be frank, I struggle to see the logic in arguments to the contrary.  We are internationalists.  My party wants independence for Scotland not to withdraw from the world and shun our neighbours, but to enable us to interact with them as equals.


No organisation is perfect and there is always room for reform and improvement.  I do understand people have legitimate concerns about the EU and I accept that some of its procedures can appear removed from our day to day lives and difficult to follow.  However, in this campaign there has been considerable overstatement of those issues and the notion that it is anything other than accountable and democratic is at best ill-informed and at worst deliberately misleading.


There are lots of good reasons to vote to ‘Remain’. From creating jobs and opportunities to environmental protections and securing our rights at work, Europe is good for Scotland. 
But as well as presenting the positive case for Remain, there can be no denying the fact that if we leave Europe, it will be a major victory for right-wing politicians like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, who’re intent on taking over the reins of power in the UK.  And make no mistake, they will take a Brexit vote as a green light to scrap workers’ rights and employment protection, while slashing public spending even further.