A well known salmon farming company was told by Scottish Government inspectors to cut lice numbers at three of its sites in Sutherland. It responded by suggesting that other salmon farmers were failing to report lice numbers accurately.
The Ferret visited Poland to visit House 88, the former home of Rudolf Höss, the SS officer who ran the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The house is being transformed into a global centre to fight extremism.
We visited the Polish city of Krakow ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day which is held to remember the millions murdered by the Nazis – including six million Jews. Krakow's Jewish population was decimated then but the city is now home to one of the fastest-growing Jewish communities in the world.
Brexit continues to be a point of controversy in Scotland, and MPs regularly question UK Government representatives at Westminster over the impact of leaving the European Union.
In an exchange on 11 January, SNP MP Philippa Whitford asked Alister Jack, the secretary of state for Scotland, about Scotland’s route back into the EU. The Dumfries and Galloway MP responded, claiming that rejoining the EU wasn’t what people in Scotland wanted.
“There’s no desire in Scotland to have membership of the EU”.
Alister Jack MP
Ferret Fact Service looked at this claim and found it False.
The referendum on the UK’s EU membership took place on 23 June 2016, with 51.9 per cent of UK voters choosing to leave.
The voting in the referendum varied in different countries within the UK. In England, 53.4 per cent of voters backed leaving the EU, and 52.5 per cent of those in Wales voted to leave.
However, a majority of voters in Scotland and Northern Ireland wanted to remain in the EU, with 38 per cent voting leave in Scotland and 44.2 per cent in Northern Ireland.
Scotland had the largest proportion of voters wanting to remain, with 62 per cent.
In the six years since the referendum, a number of polls have been conducted looking at the views of Scots on the decision to leave the EU, and whether people in Scotland want to rejoin.
What Scotland Thinks, a non-partisan research centre which collates polling on Scottish attitudes, has tracked the views of Scots since the referendum took place.
A few different questions have been asked in Scottish polling on EU membership.
Scots have been asked how they would vote in a hypothetical second referendum, or if the 2016 referendum took place today.
Polling on this question since 2016 has been consistent in showing support for remain. The latest poll in August 2022 found 65 per cent of Scots supporting remain with only 25 per cent backing leave (with 10 per cent ‘don’t knows’).
Ferret Fact Service could find no reputable polling with a significant sample size that showed majority support for Scotland leaving Europe.
A slightly different question, Should the UK rejoin the EU or stay out of the EU?, has also been asked.
In five polls between 2020 and 2022, support for rejoining was consistently above staying out of the EU.
A third question, If there was a referendum now on whether the UK should or should not join the EU, how would you vote?, has also been asked in multiple polls. This has also shown Scots polled would favour rejoining the EU instead of remaining outside.
There appears to have been no significant reduction in support for EU membership in Scotland since 2016.
Alister Jack’s claim that there’s no desire in Scotland to have membership of the European Union is not correct. Polling since the 2016 referendum, across a series of related questions, has seen support for Scottish membership of the EU. There has not been significant change in the view of Scots polled since the referendum vote itself.
Political parties have accepted thousands of pounds from lobbyists in recent years. Anti-corruption campaigners claimed donations buy lobby firms “privileged access” to politicians for their wealthy clients.
A former Scotland leader of Nigel Farage’s previous party has been under scrutiny over pro-Russian statements since an explosive court case. The Ferret analysed what David Coburn said about Russia – and Ukraine – throughout his political career.
Reform UK's Malcolm Offord claimed one million people came to the UK in the 20th century, and seven million people have come to the UK since 2000. This is not accurate.
Airbnb’s business practices in the West Bank have long been in the spotlight, prompting criticism from human rights campaigners. We can now reveal that the firm has lobbied the Scottish Government 52 times since 2018.
