Nicola Sturgeon resurrects Project Fear by claiming Brexit will cost Scotland billions

If you thought the Brexit vote marked the end of ‘Project Fear’, you’ll be saddened to know it’s back. This time it takes the form of a warning from Nicola Sturgeon about what leaving the EU might cost Scotland. The Scottish Government report into the ‘economic risk’ to the country of Brexit, on which Sturgeon’s prediction is based, doesn’t appear to be worth the paper its written on however. It puts the bill as between £1.7bn and £11.2bn – a range so huge as to render it virtually meaningless.

The report also suggests a similar, although thankfully, slightly smaller chasm in possible tax revenue, this time between £1.7bn and £3.7bn down after Brexit. It’s difficult to know where to start in picking the report to pieces: but that’s precisely the point of this sequel to Project Fear. Nicola Sturgeon said in the wake of the referendum that Scotland was being dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the EU ‘against our will’ (despite nearly four in ten Scots voting for ‘Leave’).