Europe Editor
It was boisterous, it was bittersweet. On 29 January last year, the European Parliament voted to approve the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, formally triggering the end of Britain s membership of the EU and prompting a Union Jack-waving Nigel Farage to bellow that he loved Europe but hated the European Union.
The then vice-president Mairead McGuinness glowered at Farage, telling him: Put your flags away, you’re leaving, and take them with you . After they’d left the chamber rose en masse to bid a tearful farewell to their remaining British colleagues, linking arms - not to the European Anthem
Ode to Joy - but to a Scottish folk song,
SCOTLAND is “committed to exploring closer links” with Nordic countries post-Brexit through a body set up to advance the region’s common interests, The National has been told. The development comes days after a former Danish government minister urged the country to form an alliance with its northern neighbours and to join the Nordic Council if it became independent, if it wanted to exert more influence in the area. Michael Russell, the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, Europe and External Affairs, held an online meeting with Paula Lehtomaki, the Nordic Council of Ministers’ secretary general in November last year and later wrote that closer ties made sense.