I will leave with my head held high, declares Boris

Johnson uses final PMQs to rebuff SNP’s ‘monotony’

BORIS Johnson bowed out at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday claiming he had rebuffed the SNP’s ‘delirium of monotony’ with their demands for another independence vote.

In what is expected to be his last weekly joust with opposition MPs, the defiant Prime Minister remained adamant that now is not the time for a second referendum on breaking up the United Kingdom.

The current Conservative leader said he will leave Downing Street with his ‘head held high’ as he argued that the UK was ‘better off working together’.

In the Commons yesterday, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford argued that the Tory leadership contest was ‘quickly descending into a toxic race to the right’.

‘It’s clear that, whoever wins that race, Scotland loses,’ Mr Blackford said, before suggesting that the reason Mr Johnson has not backed any of the eight candidates was because they all ‘make Genghis Khan look like a moderate’.

But Mr Johnson ignored the barb and said he feels ‘a real twinge’ that it was the last time the pair would confront each other at Westminster. He then retorted with his own jibe that it could

‘I think they need to change the record’

be because under-fire Blackford could also be facing a leadership challenge.

He added: ‘I think that the next leader of my party will want to make sure that we do everything we can to work with the Scottish Government in the way that I’ve been able to do and that I’m proud to have done over the last few years, to protect and secure our union.

‘My strong view, having listened to (Mr Blackford) for years and years now, is that we are much better together.’

Mr Blackford replied: ‘I can say with all sincerity that I hope whoever is the next leader is as popular in Scotland as he has been. Because, for people in Scotland, Westminster has never looked so outdated.’

But the Prime Minister cited the Union as the reason for the furlough scheme and the ‘massive transfers’ of funding that helps the whole of the UK. He added: ‘The last thing the people of Scotland need now is more constitutional wrangling when we need to fix the economy.’

Nationalist MP Patricia Gibson argued that the mass ministerial resignations that conspired to bring down the PM showed ‘people are allowed to change their mind’ and questioned why Scotland was not allowed another referendum to see if Scots now feel differently about independence. Her colleague Alan

Brown tried again, to which Mr Johnson replied: ‘After three years of listening to this delirium of monotony from the Scottish nationalists, I really think they need to change the record.’

Mr Johnson repeatedly alluded to it being his last appearance facing questions at PMQs as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer sought to smear the various candidates vying for the leadership, with claims of non dom status and tax avoidance.

With eight candidates still in the race yesterday afternoon – down to six by the evening – one Scottish Conservative MSP warned them against putting a timeframe on another referendum.

Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid, now both out of the race, had said another referendum should not take place for at least ten years.

But the party’s chief whip at Holyrood, Stephen Kerr, said he did not like the idea of putting a possible date on another referendum.