Jackson Carlaw’s New Year message

31 Dec 2019

See below a New Year message from Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw.

“Firstly, may I wish everybody a very happy new year, and welcome everybody to the 2020s.

“In the next few weeks, we will finally be leaving the European Union and delivering on the referendum we held in 2016.

“The first thing to say is to speak directly to European citizens living in Scotland and the UK.

“We may be leaving the institutions of the European Union at the end of the month, but the UK and Europe remain united by our shared continent.

“This is your home and we want you to stay.

“The fall-out from the referendum result has created huge tensions across the country.

“I hope that, once we have left Brussels at the end of this month, those tensions will dissipate and we can come back together.

“It is time to move on from the decade of division we have just been through, and enter a new decade of delivery for all.

“I am optimistic that this will indeed happen.

“Under the newly elected Conservative majority government, the country now has the direction it has lacked over recent years.

“It can now focus on delivering progress on the big challenges ahead of us – spreading prosperity across the whole country, tackling climate change, and restoring our public services to their right place as the best in the world.

“More constitutional division is not what Scotland wants this year. It is in all our interests to recognise that.

“I’d like to thank all those who have been out over Christmas season caring for the sick and the needy.

“I’m looking forward to getting back to work – and getting on with making our whole country a better, more united, place.”