Prime Minister will visit Scotland later today

The Prime Minister Theresa May will visit Scotland later today aiming to set out how the Brexit deal agreed with the EU protects jobs and trade while providing new opportunities for Scotland’s fishing industry and exporters.

Presumably leaving London after Prime Minister’s Questions, Mrs May will speak to factory workers near Glasgow and outline how the deal provides certainty for employers and their staff.

The deal reached in Brussels on Sunday creates a free trade area for goods with no tariffs, fees or charges – the first such agreement of its kind between an advanced economy and the EU.

Over the past week, Diageo, National Farming Union Scotland, the Scotch Whisky Association and BAE Systems have expressed their support for the deal and publicly warned about the potential consequences of ‘no deal’ for Scotland.

She will also say that, as well as giving clarity to business, the deal delivers for Scottish fishermen by taking back control of our waters.

This will enhance the fortunes of the fishing industry and allow it to take advantage of the opportunities championed by groups such as the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation.

For the first time in four decades, the UK will also be free to strike its own trade deals with non-EU countries – providing further opportunity for iconic exports such as Scottish smoked salmon and Scotch whisky.

The Prime Minister will say:

It is a deal that is good for Scottish employers and which will protect jobs. It includes a new free trade area with no tariffs, fees, quantitative restrictions or rules of origin checks—an unprecedented economic relationship that no other major economy has.

At the same time, we will be free to strike our own trade deals around the world – providing even greater opportunity to Scottish exporters. I welcome the strong support which employers have given to the deal and the certainty which it provides.

Crucially, the deal also ensures that we will leave EU programmes that do not work in our interests. So we will be out of the common agricultural policy, which has failed our farmers, and out of the common fisheries policy, which has so tragically failed Scotland’s coastal communities.

At long last, we will be “an independent coastal state” again – taking back full sovereign control over our waters, and free to decide for ourselves who we allow to fish in our waters.

The EU maintained throughout the negotiation process that it wanted to link overall access to markets to access to fisheries. It failed in the withdrawal agreement and it failed again in the political declaration.

I have been robust in defending the interests of Scottish fisherman so far- and I will always be so.