'The tide has turned': Why resurgent SNP MP says re-joining EU is ‘inevitable’

Stephen Gethins lost his North East Fife seat in 2019, only to become the new MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry last year.

Speaking exclusively to The Scotsman, he discussed his time working at the University of St Andrews in-between, putting in papers for Holyrood, and why he is so certain the UK will return to the European fold.

Reflecting in the week that marked five years since Brexit, Mr Gethins claimed a return would happen despite Labour’s perceived hesitancy on the issue.

He said: “The nice thing about being in academia is you're able to look at the broad sweeps. I wonder if in about 100 years’ time the UK will be back in the EU, and it will have seemed like a bit of a blip.

“Every country that’s joined the EU has got welfare, gained more rights for its citizens and become more secure. The one country that has left the EU got poorer, less secure and it has since lost rights.

“Sometimes we're too inclined to feel exceptional. Europe is coming together. Even those states that sit outside the EU, Norway and Switzerland, for particular historic reasons, are exceptionally close to the EU.

“So if the UK was going to be the exception and successfully the exception, that would have been seen by now.

“When there is no political, economic, social, security or any other case, and public opinion is in favour of re-joining, I just don't see a set of circumstances where you can maintain this continued downward economy, continued damage to your citizens and continued damage to your security.”

Mr Gethins, a former special adviser to Scotland’s First Minister on EU and international affairs as well as energy and climate change, claimed the tide had turned on public opinion.

He said: “I know that we're recording this the day before [the Brexit anniversary on Friday], but I'm not seeing anything in the way of celebrations. And it really strikes me that if you look at public opinions, so far ahead of the politicians on this, about two-thirds people say it was wrong and we're down about 30 per cent saying it was the right thing to do.

“What I find most striking is that Labour have chosen to own a hard Tory Brexit that is damaging their key goals of growth, is not winning them any favours politically, and until they came into power, wasn't their fault. They didn't need to own this.

“The rest of Europe is just astonished. Why would the UK continue this act of self-harm? Even if they say there's a democratic vote and the UK voted to leave the EU, why on Earth would you leave the single market and the customs union when the Treasury warned it was going to be a disaster, economists warned it was going to be a disaster?”

A YouGov poll this week found 55 per cent of Britons now say it was wrong for the UK to leave the EU, with just 11 per cent seeing Brexit as more of a success than a failure.

Now professor of practice in international relations at the University of St Andrews, Mr Gethins expressed his joy at being back in Parliament and suggested his time out of it had helped inform his world view.

He said: “It is a privilege to be elected by the people of Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, to have family members vote for me. And I love it, I wouldn’t be doing anything else.

“However, I loved my time outside of politics, and it wasn’t a given I’d return. I loved working at the University of St Andrews. It is our oldest and best educational institution, it talks to these international collaborations and partnerships and gives you a long view.

“I was working in the university and helping with the response during the pandemic. It was one of the few institutions who went off and referenced how they reacted to the last pandemic. How many institutions could have had a history where they could look at what they did during the plague? Having that long view, being outside politics, I would recommend it to anybody.”

Mr Gethins also spent time outside of politics working in areas impacted by conflict, something that even saw colleagues beaten up and left on his doorstep.

He said: “I’m someone who outside politics spent years working in areas affected by conflict. I was in Georgia for years, I was in Ukraine, I sat down with senior Russian military officers. We all draw on our own experiences, that’s why I put EU so high up on my agenda.

“I think it’s pivotal to security. I don’t think we’re taking our security enough and the threat that is being posed by countries like Russia in the way that all those that border it do.”

Returning to Parliament with an SNP group that was decimated on election night, Mr Gethins insisted they could still make an impact.

Discussing the differences, he said: “There are fewer SNP colleagues this time, which is obviously a shame. But I think being in a smaller group, you have to act in a certain way, you have to pick your fights, you have to think about how you engage.

“And bluntly as somebody who was sort of in the trenches on the day-to-day stuff around the Brexit debate and Theresa May’s minority government, it’s a very different Parliament to engage in when you’re sitting with a government that’s got a hefty majority.”

Mr Gethins insisted morale within the SNP Westminster group was still high and that his colleagues retained their enthusiasm, despite a result on general election night that left them with just nine MPs.

He said: “Morale is remarkably good, given the circumstances, and we genuinely like each other, which I think helps. We are picking our fights. We forced the debate on the two-child cap and child poverty, winter fuel payments, Waspi [women], the international situation in Gaza, pushing things on Brexit. It’s more difficult, but we are having an impact.”

Mr Gethins also discussed his Holyrood bid, being one of several MPs, including incumbent SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, to have submitted their papers for possible selection. However, he explained this was just process and it should not be a surprise that SNP MPs do not want to be in Westminster.

He said: “What it says about the SNP is they ultimately don’t see their long-term future as being in Westminster, and I don’t think that’s a big secret.

“I’ve put my papers in because I always put my papers in. Took me five minutes, put them in, and kept them up to date. I phoned my counterparts, I phoned Graeme Dey and Shona Robison to say I am putting them in, this might come out. And they were quite happy with that because I wasn’t challenging them.

“Right now, I have no plans, but it is no great secret that I do not aspire to be in Westminster, and I do not see that being part of our long-term future.”