Taxpayers foot the bill for SNP Indyref fixation
TAXPAYERS are being forced to fund ‘SNP propaganda’ about independence which ignores vast swathes of Scots voters, it was claimed yesterday.
Nicola Sturgeon was accused of pushing her personal ‘political obsession’ as she launched a 57-page document on independence, the latest in a series prepared by a team of civil servants.
It contained no new policies and focused on the claim that Scotland suffers from a ‘democratic deficit’ as part of the UK, alleging that the UK Government’s approach to Brexit, energy, social security and immigration is
‘The height of self-indulgence’
‘having detrimental effects on Scotland’. Miss Sturgeon claimed that Boris Johnson will be replaced by ‘somebody else Scotland will not have voted for’.
But critics accused her of wilfully ignoring nearly 700,000 people in Scotland who voted for the Conservatives at the last general election, as well as more than one million voters who backed Leave in the EU referendum.
She was also accused of ignoring the 2014 referendum result, when 55 per cent of Scots voted to stay in the UK, and opinion polls that show fewer than a third of Scots want a referendum by the end of next year.
Scottish Tory constitution spokesman Donald Cameron said: ‘Hundreds of thousands of Scottish voters supported this UK Conservative Government at the last general election.’
He said that this represented ‘a significant chunk of voters’ who Miss Sturgeon ‘continues to wilfully ignore’.
Mr Cameron said: ‘This speech was the height of SNP self-indulgence and distraction.
‘Nicola Sturgeon is all too happy to shamefully use her podium at Bute House to push her political obsession and have valuable civil servants’ time and resources wasted on working on the SNP’s only priority.’
Yesterday’s paper had no answers to key questions about debt, currency or borders.
Instead the First Minister claimed Scotland suffers an ‘increasing democratic deficit’ as part of the Union. Her speech was derided by Pamela Nash, chief executive of Scotland in Union, who said the public ‘will have looked at this stunt and concluded it was a complete waste of time and resources’.
NICOLA Sturgeon claims Scotland suffers from a ‘democratic deficit’ – but her party has shown nothing but contempt for democracy for years.
The SNP has ignored the result of the 2014 independence referendum when 55 per cent of Scots voted to remain in the UK, despite the party’s own assurances that it was a ‘once in a generation’ event.
Nearly 700,000 people in Scotland voted Tory in the last General Election but have been airbrushed by Miss Sturgeon, who claims that Boris Johnson will be replaced by ‘somebody else Scotland will not have voted for’.
And while she attacks Brexit, does the First Minister forget that more than one million Scots backed leaving the EU, including more than a third of Nationalist voters? It’s extraordinary that against this backdrop the SNP seeks to accuse another government of undermining democracy.
And it’s disgraceful that taxpayers should have to pay the bill for brazen propaganda – particularly as fewer than one in three Scots wants a referendum by the end of next year.
Time and again, Miss Sturgeon has shown herself to be an agitator, not a leader, whose every attempt to reform failing public services has ended in disaster; her eight years as First Minister have been a long exercise in transferring blame for those manifest deficiencies to the supposed bogeyman of the UK Government.
That she should use a podium at the official residence of the First Minister in Edinburgh to attempt to re-package her administration’s bankrupt case for splitting up the United Kingdom is shameful.
Back in 2014, Miss Sturgeon promised to ‘represent all parts of this country’. That is now exposed not only as the hollowest of pledges, but also the height of hypocrisy.