The Scottish secretary has accused the Scottish government of manufacturing an “unnecessary row” over Brexit after Holyrood voted to reject the EU withdrawal bill.



David Mundell said he was frustrated and disappointed after Holyrood decided by a large majority to withhold its consent to the EU bill because it could allow UK ministers to impose policies on Scotland without Holyrood’s agreement.

“I feel if we could put all the constitutional hoo-ha, all the bickering and politicking aside, both Scotland’s governments could work together to get us a really good deal from leaving the EU,” he told BBC Radio Scotland.

“I think people across Scotland, that’s what they want: they don’t want the bickering, they don’t want the hyperbole they saw in yesterday’s Scottish parliament debate.”

Tuesday’s vote is not binding on the UK government but it presents Theresa May with a major political dilemma.

The prime minister can either give in to the Scottish government’s demands for a final say on any of those policy changes or stand her ground and impose the new arrangements, risking a constitutional battle with the Scottish parliament. Ministers in both governments are discussing a fresh round of talks.

The row centres on how the UK government and the devolved governments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast will agree on any changes to about 24 policy areas currently controlled by the EU, such as farm subsidies, fishing quotas, food labelling and state aid.

All the governments have agreed there needs to be UK-wide frameworks for these areas, and talks involving all four administrations are ongoing.

The Welsh government has agreed the UK government has the final say if there are disputes in the five years from Brexit day over these policies, after ministers in London amended the EU bill in response to Welsh and Scottish concerns.

Nicola Sturgeon’s government in Edinburgh insists that Holyrood must explicity agree to any changes before they can take effect. With the support of Scottish Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Scottish Greens, her government refused to give the EU bill its legislative consent in the vote on Tuesday.

Mundell said the focal point of the dispute was highly technical: “There did seem to be a fundamental misunderstanding among many of the MSPs [about] what this bill is about. It’s about a technical process of agreeing things that we’ve already agreed, and that’s why I find it almost incomprehensible that we’ve got into this debate around what’s really a very, very technical issue.”