Scottish Labour Leader Michael Marra speech at the University of Edinburgh - Nov 10

The UK should rejoin the European Union, Michael Marra said today. 

At a keynote speech in Edinburgh University the Scottish Labour leader urged the Prime Minister Andy Burnham ensure that rejoining the EU is part of the public conversation around the UK's future relationship with Europe. 

Mr Marra also said he would support rejoin being the party's policy in the next UK manifesto. 

"Thank you, Ruth, for that kind introduction. And congratulations again everyone, give it up for Scotland's newest Labour councillor.

It's a privilege to be here at the University of Edinburgh. The home of David Hume. The seat of learning where Charles Darwin first studied.

And a generous institution, letting a Glasgow graduate through the door.

As a proud Dundonian, I stay well out of the rivalry between Glasgow and Edinburgh. 

Though I will say they're on to something with the salt and sauce.

Although maybe not on a Dundee peh. 

My predecessor described leading Scottish Labour as the hardest job in British politics.

Six weeks in, I understand what he meant, but I am learning fast. 

A few days after I was elected leader, I was asked whether I thought the United Kingdom would rejoin the EU.

I answered in the moment. I reflected on the mounting tensions across the continent and said I doubted we'd be offered reasonable terms for a generation.

I answered honestly.

But something didn't feel quite right. And I've thought a lot about it since. For years, Scottish politics has been defined by the same arguments, the same dividing lines and the same assumptions about what is and isn't possible. Without quite realising it, I had begun to accept some of those limits myself.

But when you are the leader, it's not your job simply to respond to the political landscape you've inherited.

Your job is to help shape it. To set a course, make the case for it and bring people with you.

The question was no longer what I thought would happen. It was what I thought should happen and what was I going to do about it.

So today I want to give you a better answer.

I am today setting out a distinct Scottish Labour position to lead the conversation on the UK's future in Europe.

It is in Scotland's interests, and in the interests of the whole United Kingdom, for the UK to rejoin the European Union. 

The UK should rejoin the European Union and Scottish Labour will work to make that happen.

I don't pretend it will happen quickly. But I believe we should set it as a long-term objective for the UK, and that Scotland should lead the change in making that happen.

Let me tell you why.

We are living in a fragile and uncertain world.

War has returned to Europe. Alliances we once took for granted are under strain. Climate change is reshaping our environment and our security. Artificial intelligence will change how we live and work in ways we are only beginning to grasp.

As the Arctic ice retreats, new shipping routes and strategic interests are opening up in the far north. Scotland, on Europe's northern edge, is going to matter more, not less. That means opportunities and it means very serious threats.

In a world like this, relationships matter.

We are stronger as part of the United Kingdom.

And we would be stronger still as part of a Europe working together.

Take the North Sea and the transition to renewable energy. Scotland has the coastline, the wind, the expertise and the ambition to become a major producer.

Across Europe, countries are planning a vast network of offshore wind farms and electricity cables, connecting their energy systems to share power and collectively strengthen energy security.

Scotland should be at the heart of that. Not just generating electricity, but helping to build the industries, develop the technology and create the jobs that will power Europe's future.

Our universities and research institutions have similar opportunities to work across borders, making discoveries none of us could achieve alone. The expansion of knowledge grows with sharing and collaboration. I know that keenly from my own research career. 

I don't want Scotland and the UK watching from the sidelines as the pace of change quickens ever more.

I want us helping to shape these changes, with a voice in the decisions that determine our future.

We must start by being honest about what Brexit has cost.

Not to reopen old wounds or return to the arguments of the past. 

Many people who voted Leave did so in hope of change: better wages, stronger communities, a life that didn't feel so hard all the time.

That hope was real. It deserved better than it got.

Because ten years on, the evidence is hard to ignore.

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility expects UK trade to be around fifteen per cent lower, and productivity around four per cent lower in the long run, than if we'd stayed in the European Union.

'Productivity' sounds like a dry word. But a lack of productivity growth means something very human: what people earn, what families can afford, what we can spend on schools and hospitals.

Researchers at the London School of Economics found that new barriers at the border added around £210 to the average household's food bill in just the first two years of Brexit.

And Scottish businesses have been paying the price too.

I read on the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum about a company called Just Food Services, a seafood business in Selkirk in the Scottish Borders. 

Brexit cost the company most of its export customers. A business built around selling Scottish produce to Europe had to restructure itself to survive.

Their director tells the story of an Italian customer who complained about a shipment of smoked salmon. The company agreed to take it back.

Except bringing their own salmon back into Britain became a bureaucratic nightmare.

After hours of paperwork and trying to satisfy customs officials that the goods weren't being returned for resale, the salmon was ordered to be destroyed.

Think about that.

A Scottish business couldn't even bring its own Scottish salmon home.

That's what trade barriers mean in practice.

Wasted time, wasted money and lost customers.

Rebuilding our place in Europ offers one of the biggest opportunities we have to strengthen our economy.

Breaking down barriers with our biggest trading partner would help Scottish businesses grow, attract investment and create better-paid jobs.

It could help bring down prices and generate more money for our public services.

Of course, Europe won't solve every problem we have.

But if we're serious about growth, we cannot keep ignoring the opportunity on our doorstep.

And the cost of Brexit hasn't only been economic.

Some of the greatest losses have been opportunities that can never be measured in pounds and pence.

For the first time in modern history, a generation came of age with fewer rights than their parents fewer, even, than their older brothers and sisters.

The right to live, work, study and fall in love anywhere across a whole continent was gone before many of you were old enough to vote on it.

Then came the pandemic. Lockdown. Lost exams, lost freshers' weeks, lost first jobs.

A generation told to stay at home just when they should have been heading out into the world.

It's no wonder so many young people feel the future has been narrowed for them.

I want to widen it again.

From 2027, young people across Scotland will once again be able to benefit from Erasmus+. That's a real step forward, and Labour in government made it happen.

A new Youth Experience Scheme is being negotiated, which could give young people more opportunities to spend time living, working and studying in Europe.

These are good starts. But they shouldn't be the limit of our ambition.

I want young people growing up in Scotland to have every opportunity to see the world, learn new things, build good careers and make happy lives for themselves.

That's what the UK rejoining the EU can mean. 

Scotland may hanker for some of the auld alliance. But this is about the young ones.

And there is a more profound reason as to why I believe this is the right course for Scotland.

Our European connections run deep. Long before our economy turned towards the Atlantic our merchants traded across the North Sea. 

Our scholars studied in Leiden and Paris.

And when the Scottish Enlightenment sparked Hume, Smith, Hutton, many of them in this very city it changed the world because Scotland was part of a great European conversation.

We have never had to choose between being Scottish, British and European.

Our best moments have come from being all three.

Underneath it all is an old Scottish belief: that we're a' Jock Tamson's bairns.

That we share a common humanity, and that we owe something to each other.

This is the belief at the heart of the Labour movement. It's why working people built trade unions and communities came together to build better lives.

We achieve more together than any of us can alone.

Solidarity, not separation.

Now, I know rejoining the EU won't be easy.

There are serious questions about our currency, our borders, our laws and our obligations.

We shouldn't hide from those questions or pretend the answers are straightforward. Nor can we assume that our European neighbours would offer us whatever terms we wanted.

But difficult is not the same as impossible.

The Prime Minister has acknowledged that Brexit has done more harm than good.

He has called for an evidence-based assessment and a discussion about what Britain's long-term relationship with Europe should be.

Today I am putting Scottish Labour in the vanguard of that conversation.

Rejoining the EU is not the current policy of the UK Labour Party and not the current policy of the UK Government. 

The UK Labour party isn't there yet. This is a distinct Scottish Labour position. 

Today I am setting out what I think the best destination is for Scotland and the whole of the UK. I will seek to make that positive case and build that consensus.

I have written to the Prime Minister making the case that rejoining be considered as part of Britain's longer-term European debate.

I have also told him that he will have my personal support and that of the Scottish Labour Party in ensuring it is included in the next UK manifesto.

In the next year I will convene a Scottish summit, bringing together businesses, trade unions, universities, young people and civil society, to develop the case.

And I will invite the other Holyrood parties to join the summit too, because on Europe, most of the parties agree we should strengthen our European ties. 

Just because we don't agree on everything doesn't mean we can't agree on some things.

I also know as much as I need to persuade people in my own party about this destination, I need to persuade people in my own country.

One million Scots voted leave. Many did so out of a desperate desire for change. My approach will be to listen and persuade them, not berate them.

This is what Scottish Labour will do. Bring people together. Find common ground. Make the case for change and unite people in that endeavour.

The truth is that Scotland's best chance for re-entering the EU is by the UK rejoining.

We can build a case through honest deliberation and careful compromise. We can build a coalition of those seeking change.

We can build a consensus.

The SNP tells Scots they must leave one union to join another.

I'm not asking Scotland to choose. 

I'm asking Scotland to help bring the whole United Kingdom back into Europe.

Let's use one union to join another.

Solidarity, not separation. At every level.

Lead, not leave.

Friends, when I think back to that question I was asked about Europe, my answer troubled me because I told people what I thought was politically possible.

Now I understand that my job is to help change what is possible.

For too long Scottish Labour has allowed other people to define what's possible for us.

We've accepted the boundaries of a political argument that isn't taking Scotland forward.

And we've become estranged from too many of the people we were founded to represent.

We won't fix that by telling people we've changed.

We have to change how we behave.

We have to listen, challenge our assumptions and work with people to build a better future.

A fairer Scotland, starting with the opportunities we give our children and the education they receive.

An economy that creates good jobs and spreads prosperity to every part of the country.

A changing UK that works better for Scotland and for people everywhere.

And a renewed place in Europe.

I won't always get everything right. No leader does.

But we have to be willing to change things, starting with ourselves.

That's what I'm learning about leadership.

And that's the Scottish Labour Party I intend to build.

Thank you."