EU referendum: Tom Harris to head Scottish Vote Leave campaign
- Published
A former Labour MP has confirmed he is to head the Scottish branch of a campaign for the UK to leave the EU.
Tom Harris said the debate was about "putting our own country, our own economy, our own people first".
The former Glasgow South MP is to be the campaign director of the Vote Leave campaign.
A pro-EU campaign, Scotland Stronger In Europe, is already up and running. It has said EU membership protects jobs and workers' rights.
All five parties in the Scottish Parliament want the UK to remain in the EU, although there are some dissenting voices within them.
An in/out referendum on EU membership will be held on 23 June, with opinion polls suggesting the EU is more popular in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK.
Mr Harris, who had been an MP since 2001 until losing his seat to the SNP last year, said the Labour Party had a "long tradition of scepticism" when it came to the EU.
He said another former Scottish Labour MP, Ian Davidson, would also be involved with Vote Leave, which is vying with the Leave.EU/Grassroots Out group to be named as the official Leave campaign ahead of the referendum.
In a column in the Daily Record, external, Mr Harris wrote: "Every week the UK sends £350m to the EU. Scotland's share is roughly a tenth of that - more than £1.5bn a year.
'Downsides are obvious'
"Just think what that money could buy here in Scotland - on schools, on our health service, repairing our roads - if it wasn't being sent into the black hole that is EU spending."
Mr Harris said wanting to leave the EU was not about being "anti-European" but rather about "putting our own country, our own economy, our own people, first".
And he said part of the argument that Scottish Vote Leave will make would involve the "challenge of immigration", and the importance of the UK "securing" its borders".
He added: "For wealthier, more secure workers, migration from the EU poses no difficulties; it helps provide cheap and reliable workers. But for the worse off, the downsides are obvious.
Scotland Stronger in Europe is the main pro-EU campaign group north of the border
"Last year, a report by the Bank of England concluded that net migration has driven down wages for the poorest paid. We know of British builders whose hourly pay has dropped from £15 to £7 an hour because of the influx of foreign workers."
He said the UK leaving the EU would bring more powers to the Scottish Parliament, and that Britain and Scotland would "have a much brighter future than we do right now".
A spokesman for Scotland Stronger in Europe said 250,000 Scottish jobs were linked to the UK's trade with Europe, and "vital workers' rights - including paid holiday leave and maternity and paternity leave - are protected by the EU".
'Public support'
He added: "With fewer than 100 days to the referendum, the Leave campaign cannot say what would happen to all these gains if we quit.
"It is entirely up to the Leave side who leads their campaign in Scotland, but it seems clear that they cannot match Stronger In for the diversity, expertise and broad public support encompassed in our campaign."
The campaign director of Scotland Stronger in Europe is former Motherwell and Wishaw Labour MP Frank Roy, with former SNP spin doctor Kevin Pringle recruited to provide communications.
The campaign's advisory group is chaired by academic Mona Siddiqui.