Sturgeon: There’s not an anti-english bone in my body
NICOLA Sturgeon has said she does not have “an antienglish bone” in her body as she insisted any decision about quarantining people coming into Scotland will be based on public health considerations.
The First Minister said any suggestion the Scottish Government would impose restrictions on English people crossing the Border for political reasons is “plain wrong”.
It came as she was asked about comments made by outdoor clothing retailer CCW, which has stores in Callander, St Andrews and in the west end of Glasgow.
Liz Geddes, who co-founded the retail chain, said some of the rhetoric against the English in Scotland “does not help”, adding: “Our business is built on English and European visitors coming to Scotland and we make them welcome.
“We would not be in business if it were not for the English visitors.”
Independence campaigners recently held a demonstration on the Scottish Border urging English tourists to stay away, in a move condemned by Ms Sturgeon.
However, the First
Minister has faced repeated criticism for refusing to rule out imposing quarantine restrictions on visitors from the rest of the UK.
Pamela Nash, chief executive of pro-uk campaign group Scotland in Union, previously accused her of driving a wedge between Scotland and England.
Speaking during her daily coronavirus briefing, Ms Sturgeon said: “There’s not an anti-english bone in my body. I don’t have a single anti-english fibre of my being.
“I come from partly English stock – my grandmother was English – and I lead a party that is full of English people.
“We’re dealing with a public health crisis right now and I think anybody who tries to say that the decisions we are taking in a public health sense are somehow political, constitutional or suggest in any way an attitude towards people from other parts of the UK, are just plain wrong.
“I would ask people to think carefully about any suggestion of that type.
“You’ve heard me say before that there are many, many parts of the world right now where particular parts of countries have internal borders closed to other parts of countries because of a desire to stop this virus spreading.
“I think some public health experts from overseas probably look at this debate in the UK right now askance and don’t really understand why we wouldn’t be driven purely be considerations of public health, and I’m going to try and be driven purely by considerations of public health.”
The First Minister said the worst thing she could do for businesses was to stop being “cautious” about controlling the virus.
She added: “If we do stop being cautious, we risk again, as we see in other parts of the country, a further shutdown of parts of the economy, up to and including a potential second lockdown.
“And that will be even more devastating, with potentially even more and even longer-term damage to the economy.”
Appearing on the BBC’S Andrew Marr Show at the weekend, Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Government has to take a “very close look” to make sure the virus is not coming into Scotland from other parts of the UK.
Yesterday, she was asked whether quarantine restrictions on people arriving from the rest of the UK are inevitable if Scotland’s deaths and infection rates continue to be lower than England.
She said nothing is inevitable but she would not “shy away” from the decision if she believed it would help control the spread of the virus.
She said: “As First Minister of the Scottish Government, we will take careful decisions based on evidence and judgment and the precautionary principle.
“I hope we don’t have to do any of that but I’m not going to shy away from it if it is what is required to try to stop this virus taking any more lives and doing any more damage than it already has.”
With the Scottish tourism sector reopening from today, Ms Sturgeon added: “For anybody, whether you are visiting Scotland or living here, the most important thing I can say to you is to follow rigorously and rigidly all of the public health advice.”