June 23, 2026

Ten years on, Brexit is another “great betrayal” of Scotland

Scotland is the hardest hit of any UK nation by Brexit.  A new academic study, Measuring the Regional Economic Cost of Brexit: Evidence, reports that Brexit has left Scotland almost £30 billion a year worse off.

Yet every council area in Scotland voted to Remain. As a whole, the country rejected Brexit with a 62% Remain vote. Despite this, Scotland was forced into a hard Brexit and any attempt by the Scottish Government to negotiate with the UK government was sneeringly dismissed. 

  • Brexit reintroduced barriers to trade with our largest trading block partner. 

  • Scotland did the most trade per capita with the EU and so has therefore experienced the largest losses. 

  • Scotland’s cumulative loss is around £19,352 per person. 

  • Scotland's key export industries - including whisky and food and drink, oil and chemicals, and professional services - have been particularly affected. 

  • The Scottish government wrote to the UK government to protest about trade deals that are bad for Scotland, but were completely ignored. 

  • Brexit led to more immigration not less - there are more health workers in the NHS in England from India than the EU now. The care sector is now also highly dependent on non-EU workers. 

  • When the UK wanted to reduce post-Brexit immigration they brought in new rules that don’t work for Scotland

  • Lost taxes from the lost economic activity is costing the Scottish government £3 billion a year

  • The UK government promised to replace EU funding to Scotland - but instead of programmes delivered in collaboration with the Scottish government on seven-year cycles, Scotland gets much less, allocated according to the unpredictable whims of Westminster. Scotland made up 8.4 per cent of the population at the time, but received around 17.5 per cent of all of the EU grants to the UK. The EU were mitigating Westminster damage to Scotland and that wasn't replaced so Brexit hurts Scotland more.

  • Scotland is being dragged down because of its attachment to the UK. Since Brexit, London has slipped from one of the top financial markets in the world to number 23 in terms of the value of IPOs. When London lost frictionless access to the European market, it weakened one of its biggest advantages. 

Another “great betrayal”

Because of the New Zealand trade deal, the UK is now importing more than four times more tariff-free beef than the entire EU, which protects its farmers and its food security. Only a small percentage of Scotland is premium agricultural land - Scotland’s beef producers cannot compete on price with high-volume New Zealand beef producers. 

Europe has a strong market for high-quality Scottish beef, but the Brexit red tape and extra costs have made it much harder for Scottish producers to export there. 

Back when refrigerator ships were invented in the 1920s, the UK government overnight abolished any support for small farmers, in favour of New Zealand and Australian imports. This was called in Scotland “the Great Betrayal”. Farming collapsed, especially the small, marginal ones on upland pasture like much of Scotland. Tenants walked away from their land. Scotland lost 5% of its population. 

When the UK joined the EU, New Zealand suffered a trade shock when they stopped being able to export so much. For four decades, New Zealand beef exports to the UK were heavily restricted by quotas. 

The CAP supported Scotland’s farmers and food security

In the European Union, the Common Agricultural Policy is designed so that small farmers and food security are protected. Much of the cost of food production is paid by taxpayers and the price at the till is affordable. When part of the EU, Scotland’s farmers were protected too. 

When the UK was in the EU, Scottish farmers were able to benefit from support delivered on predictable seven-year cycles. The EU also recognises something it calls ‘peripherality’ - for rural areas far from markets. The UK government doesn’t recognise this and it has never kept its promise to replicate EU funding.  

The UK has sacrificed Scotland’s farmers and food security on the Brexit altar

As well, the UK government made the decision to sacrifice Scotland’s farmers to the need to make quick post-Brexit deals. 

Since the UK’s much vaunted trade deal went live, the value of New Zealand beef entering the UK surged from about £6 million (in the year ending June 2023) to a staggering £52 million. That represents an 800% expansion in trade value.

NFU Scotland Vice President Duncan Macalister issued a scathing assessment:

"Brexit resulted in trade agreements such as Australia and New Zealand that have allowed UK livestock producers to be undercut. We are now seeing growing volumes of imported beef entering the UK market... This is a significant market shift, and Scottish producers are increasingly concerned about the impact it could have on domestic production and long-term confidence in the sector."

Macalister points out that this influx of cheap foreign beef is hitting just as domestic cattle prices are falling and production costs are soaring, threatening the long-term viability of Scotland’s beef industry. 

The promise of Westminster after Brexit was that they would make trade deals that offered a better prospect for Scottish businesses. They have done the exact opposite. 

The venison paradox  

Here is another small example of where the Brexit deal that was imposed on Scotland against our will is hurting the Scottish economy.

Deer are overgrazing huge swathes of the Scottish countryside, where in many cases they have no predators other than starvation. Yet if you buy venison in the pub or supermarket, it is more likely to have come from New Zealand than a nearby hillside. 

Scottish wild venison is seasonal and it is expensive to get it off the hillside and into the food chain. Scottish game dealers used to export it to Europe, where there is a strong market for this wild, lean meat.  But Brexit has piled red tape on Scottish producers and it is much harder to export premium wild venison abroad or to compete on price at home.  

Other European countries are doing better on food security

Switzerland, which is in the Schengen zone and EFTA,  protects its food and farming sectors in trade deals. It produces the same proportion of its food as Scotland, with a quarter of the farmland. 

Finland, which is in the EU, is doing far better than Scotland on food self-sufficiency. It faces a brutally short growing season and harsh Nordic winters. Yet Finland produces roughly 80% of all the food its population consumes. They are entirely self-sufficient in milk, meat, and eggs, and almost all of their domestic bread cereal needs.

Finland treats food production as a matter of national security and defence. They don't let foreign trade deals wipe out their domestic farmers. They can make that choice as an independent country. 

Finland makes the most of its agricultural land - Scotland cannot do the same under the post Brexit trade deals that Westminster has imposed. 

Conclusion

In 2016, the democratic will of the Scottish electorate was unanimous: every single council area voted to remain within the European Union. Yet, when the Scottish Government sought to have this distinct mandate recognised, Westminster met them with a dismissive rejection. 

This is a bitter harvest from the 2014 independence referendum, when the "No" campaign won in no small part by assuring Scots that staying in the UK was the only way to safeguard their place in Europe.

There was no democratic consent from the Scottish electorate for the disruption of Brexit; instead, a nation that voted unanimously across every single local authority to maintain its European ties was systematically dragged out of the single market by a political project driven by the disproportionate size of the English electorate.  

In the era of tariff wars and global uncertainty, EU members rest secure in the knowledge they have the right to trade freely with each other. Meanwhile, thanks to Westminster, Scotland is part of a vulnerable and isolated UK. 

Today, the hard numbers tell their own story - billions in lost growth, fractured supply chains, and hollowed-out workforces. Scotland's economic stability was treated as collateral damage in a constitutional upheaval it actively rejected.