Alyn Smith (Verts/ALE). – Madam President, as a Scottish European I have long wondered how I would feel today. The answer is, I am heartbroken, not for myself, but for the people I serve, for future generations. Scotland will not be silent within this process, as our rights are taken away by an administration we do not support, by a vote that we clearly rejected and a process that is demonstrably against our interests.

While being heartbroken, I am also angry. I am angry at this process, and I am angry at the way the UK is representing itself, doing a bad thing badly. Mrs May and Nigel Farage do not speak for Scotland, do not speak for me, and do not speak for 48% of the UK’s population. The UK is not one bloc, much as Mrs May would like it to be; the UK is a complicated set of various interests, all of which are better reflected in this resolution than in anything the UK Government has put forward to date.

Scotland will not be silent in this process, and Scotland’s top priority, in the words of our First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, is to keep our citizens safe. Scotland is your home, you are welcome here. I appreciate that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed but please, colleagues, let us make our citizens feel safe, our citizens from the UK in other countries, and citizens from other nations in ours. Let’s deal with that first, let’s deal with that fast and let’s deal with it now.