Criticism grows as Sturgeon takes eye off day job
NICOLA Sturgeon has been accused of turning her back on the growing crisis facing Scotland’s economy, NHS and schools as she used her biggest speech of the summer to focus on her dream of breaking up Britain.
The First Minister yesterday delivered a lengthy speech in Edinburgh that ignored the SNP’s mounting domestic problems and laid the groundwork for more economic chaos with a divisive second independence referendum.
Addressing business leaders, charity bosses and politicians, she said the UK was facing ‘uncertainty, upheaval and unpredictability’ following the Brexit vote and for Scotland it ‘may well be that the option that offers us the greatest certainty, stability and the maximum control over our own destiny is that of independence’.
Her comments came just days after it emerged that Scotland’s economy has officially flatlined and now teeters on the brink of recession, with a jobless rate significantly higher than the UK average that is causing misery for tens of thousands of families.
One in four surgeries in Scotland has at least one vacancy for a GP and hospitals have missed two cancer treatment targets for the first time amid a shortage of surgeons. Council chiefs have warned that schools could be forced to close due to a growing shortage of teachers, while maths skills have slumped and the gulf in attainment between rich and poor has grown.
The SNP is also under pressure over the impending roll-out of the Named Person legislation, which has alarmed parents and professionals, and ministers are facing demands to intervene to prevent more rail strikes.
Lib Dem MSP Mike Rumbles said: ‘Another independence push would only divide the nation further. The economy is flatlining and other important issues like education and health continue to fall behind in the queue.’
A Labour spokesman said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon can’t forget about the day job. The gap between the richest and the rest in schools is as wide as ever, there is an ongoing rail dispute that is causing disruption and all the signs are that our economy is heading for more difficult times.
‘The constitution cannot continue to dominate at the expense of everything else.’
Although the UK as a whole voted to leave the EU last month, almost two-thirds of Scots voters backed Remain, which prompted Miss Sturgeon to say a second independence referen- dum is now ‘highly likely’. While her Government has been exploring options to retain the country’s links with Europe, the First Minister conceded there are ‘substantial’ barriers towards achieving this as part of the UK’s Brexit deal.
She listed five key interests she will seek to protect: making Scotland’s voice heard; safe-
‘Economy is flatlining’ ‘Flimsy excuse for a referendum’
guarding the free movement of people; protecting workers’ rights; joining international efforts to tackle climate change and crime; and having an influence on the European stage.
But Scottish Tory Murdo Fraser said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon talks about five tests – but the truth is there’s only ever one test for the SNP, and that’s separation. She is setting these up to fail to provide another flimsy excuse for a referendum re-run. Scotland does not want the division of another independence vote.’
Miss Sturgeon, speaking at an event hosted by the IPPR thinktank, said the UK could be heading for a ‘hard rather than a soft Brexit’, raising fears this could leave the county with ‘limited access’ to the single market and ‘significant restrictions’ on free movement of people.
She claimed: ‘Much of the blame for what happened on June 23 lies with the UK Government’s ideological obsession with austerity, with its decision to make ordinary people pay the price of a financial crash they didn’t cause and with its cynical collusion in the myth that cuts and public service pressures are the fault of migrants’
She also said she felt ‘contempt’ for the Leave campaign, which she claimed had ‘lied’ and ‘gave succour’ to ‘overt racism’.
An SNP spokesman said: ‘There has been no let-up in our drive to move Scotland forward and the Scottish Government has made announcements on issues as diverse as mental health, flood prevention, tackling child poverty and measures to improve participation in sport.’
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