BoJo: No IndyRef2 for a generation
FM is urged to focus on Covid-19 recovery
BORIS Johnson has once again dismissed calls for a second Scottish independence referendum.
In his first interview of the year, the Prime Minister had no new arguments against SNP demands for a re-run of the 2014 vote, saying that referendums should only be held “once in a generation”.
The Tory leader told the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme: “Referendums in my experience, direct experience, in this country are not particularly jolly events.
“They don’t have a notably unifying force in the national mood, they should be only once in a generation.”
Asked what the difference was between a referendum on EU membership being granted and another on Scottish independence being requested, he said: “The difference is we had a referendum in 1975 and we then had another one in 2016.
“That seems to be about the right sort of gap. How about that?”
Ian Blackford, the SNP Westminster leader, accused the Prime Minister of “denying democracy”. He tweeted: “‘How about that’ says blustering Boris Johnson. He knows he cannot be a democracy denier for ever if those in Scotland demand the right to choose our own future.”
Having sealed a free trade deal with the EU, the consequences of Brexit for the future of the United Kingdom will move centre stage this year.
Nicola Sturgeon is set to make a demand for a second referendum if, as expected, a pro-independence majority is elected to the Scottish Parliament in elections scheduled for May. Johnson has already rejected the idea, quoting Sturgeon and former SNP leader Alex Salmond’s own words that the 2014 vote was a “once in a generation event”.
SNP veteran Jim Sillars called on Sturgeon to drop calls for a referendum and focus on the Covid crisis recovery.
Sillars, a former party deputy leader, said a second independence vote should not be on the First Minister’s priority list as it was not on the nation’s. He wrote: “Look at the timetable: elections in May, while still struggling to contain the pandemic and get mass vaccination done; the damage to the economic base starting to become fully evident, with a claimant need for policies to assist in reconstruction; our children’s education still a problem; and a care home system demanding changes.
“There is enough there to justify Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying, ‘Not now, for God’s sake’, and getting nods of approval from the Scots, even if, hypocritically, in private.”