The former SNP MP told BBC Newsnight leaving the European Union would make Scotland “worse off” and called for an independence vote as soon as possible. Mr Gethins said: “If your neighbour’s making a really bad mistake – and economists and others agree this is a bad mistake – why would you maintain that mistake?
He claimed leaving the EU would make Scotland “poorer and worse off” and that this would be made worse with a hard Brexit.
However, the politician was blasted on Twitter by critics for his comments, with some questioning whether a Scottish independence vote would be successful.
One said: “Scotland would have left the EU in 2016 if the ref in 2014 had been yes – you speak with a forked tongue.
“Just grievance and bull**** again from the SNP.”
Another user wrote: “The permanently smug and electorally rejected Mr Gethins opines. Hardly a game changer.”
One user on the other side of the debate claimed he had made a “fantastic contribution”.
Mr Gethins continued, suggesting that Scotland should leave the UK on the basis it did not agree on the direction Brexit was headed.
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Newsnight host Emily Barnett hit back, stating support of around 50 percent “isn’t a decisive as it should be.”
Mr Gethins continued regardless, claiming Brexit would be “taking away rights and opportunities among young people that I enjoyed when I was growing up, in education, in jobs, in freedom of movement.”
He alleged young people were particularly likely to vote for Scottish independence due to Brexit because “they’ve got that similar internationalist vision.”
“At long last, the Tories have to recognise the democratic right of the people of Scotland to decide their own future.”
It is not the first time the former SNP politician has clashed publicly with the idea of Brexit.
In 2016, Mr Gethins contacted the Electoral Commission to complain about a Vote Leave leaflet which he said misinterpreted him to make it seem as though he supported the idea.
Mr Gethins was quoted as saying the UK “can be a successful, independent country outside the European Union” and referred to “the failings of the Common Fisheries Policy.”
He did not deny he had made the comments, but said they were “selectively quoted.”
He complained: “For the avoidance of any doubt whatsoever I believe that the UK is much better off within the European Union and that is the case I was making in the comments that were selectively quoted by Vote Leave.”
