The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Johnson ‘not the person who can save the union’
No real opposition in Scotland emboldens SNP, claims Blair
Tony Blair has said Boris Johnson is not the person to save the union as he criticised Labour for playing around with nationalist sentiment.
The former prime minister admitted it was “a possibility” that Scotland would quit the UK as he lamented the lack of opposition to the SNP.
Appearing on Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday show, Mr Blair said Brexit and the failure of Labour and the Tories to oppose the SNP effectively had contributed to the threat to the United Kingdom.
Asked if he thought Scotland would vote to leave the UK as a result of Brexit, Mr Blair replied: “It’s a possibility, yes.”
Mr Blair argued it was not in the interests of Scotland to become independent because of the UK’s strong economic and cultural ties, but noted Brexit had added “an additional dimension”.
“My view about Scotland is that there have been two problems over the last decade,” the former prime minister said.
“The first obviously was after Brexit. But even before that the Labour party went off, in my view, the completely wrong direction in Scotland and the Conservative Party – at least until Ruth Davidson – looked as if they were nowhere.
“There was no proper opposition the SNP.”
He argued that a Labour revival in Scotland under Keir Starmer would be a “significant advantage” to the pro-union cause. to
Ms Ridge drew Mr Blair’s attention to a recent poll suggesting a majority of Scots felt Mr Johnson was not doing a good job.
“He’s (Boris Johnson’s) not going to be the person who’s going to save the union in that sense,” Mr Blair said.
At the weekend, Ms Davidson, the former Scottish Tory leader, claimed the pro-union side made a “huge strategic error” by not taking a more aggressive approach to nationalism after its victory in the 2014 independence referendum.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, she said: “Mistakes have been made and one of these was not sticking the boot in after the 2014 referendum.
“We wanted the country to come back together and we were, if you like, interested in showing ourselves to be bigger people than them.
“That was, morally, the right thing to do, but tactically it was a mistake. A huge strategic error, in fact.”