‘It’s Nationalist interest over national interest’

NICOLA Sturgeon was yesterday accused of putting her ‘Nationalist interest’ ahead of the ‘national interest’ as she refused to support key Brexit legislation.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson called on her to back the UK’s EU Withdrawal Bill as the topic dominated First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood.

Miss Davidson demanded Miss Sturgeon follow the Welsh Government by agreeing to the changes in the Bill.

She said: ‘There is a deal to be done; the Welsh back it, other parties in this chamber back it. I say to her, for once will you do a deal in the national interest and not your Nationalist interest?

‘Isn’t it the case it doesn’t suit the First Minister’s political purposes to make a deal, so she is dancing on the head of a pin in order to find reasons not to?’

The dispute centres on whether powers returning from Brussels after Brexit should first go to London, to allow UK-wide frameworks to be established in areas such as farming and environmental regulations.

On the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland yesterday, retired Scots judge Lord Hope, convener of the crossbench peers in the Lords, said: ‘To begin with, you read the Bill and it didn’t seem to recog- nise devolution existed. I think the Scottish Government were absolutely right to put their position on the table and say, “Look, this has got to change”.

‘Since then, I have been working with others to make sure the Bill is changed in many areas to make it clear that the devolution settlement is respected. We are now very close to the point where I think that has been achieved.’

But Miss Sturgeon said: ‘I don’t think any self-respecting member of this parliament should give those proposals the time of day and this Government will not do that. If that means we are the only party prepared to stand up for the rights and powers of this Scottish parliament, then so be it.

‘We are being asked to sign up to an agreement that would allow the powers of this parliament in areas that really matter, like agriculture, fishing, the environment, state aid and public procurement, to be removed for up to seven years without the consent of this parliament.’

During ministerial questions at Westminster, Environment Secretary Michael Gove told West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine Tory MP Andrew Bowie: ‘Agreement has been reached with the Welsh Government.

‘It has shown a degree of flexibility and taken a constructive approach, in stark contrast to the Scottish Government and First Minister, who has put a narrow ideological pursuit of separation ahead of the interests of the people of Scotland – and not for the first time, either.’

Glasgow North Nationalist MP Patrick Grady asked for a guarantee no frameworks will be ‘imposed across the UK without the democratic consent of the Scottish parliament and the Welsh Assembly’.

Mr Gove said: ‘The Honourable Gentleman knows the stark contrast between the constructive approach of the Labour administration in Cardiff and the obstructive approach of the Nationalist administration in Holyrood does not redound to the credit of the Scottish National Party.

‘The truth is that the SNP has only one policy, which is separation.

‘Everything else is tactics – and they are prepared to throw Scottish farmers under the bus in their desperate desire to elevate the destruction of the United Kingdom above the creation of wealth for the people of Scotland.’

‘It doesn’t suit her to make a deal’