Tempers flare at Holyrood committee between MSPS Russell and Lockhart
A Scottish Government minister has accused a Conservative MSP of being an “apologist for an appalling deal” during heated exchanges in the Scottish Parliament.
Cabinet Secretary Michael Russell said Tory Dean Lockhart was “misrepresenting” both the Brexit trade deal and the SNP position on voting against it in Westminster.
However Mr Lockhart, the Tory constitution spokesman, said he would take the word of the CBI and British Retail Consortium (BRC) over that of Mr Russell’s on whether the deal struck with the EU was a good one or not.
At Holyrood’ s Europe committee yesterday, Mr Russell was taking questions on the
Scottish Government’s decision not to grant a Legislative Consent Motion (LCM) for the Brexit deal.
Mr Lockhart said: “In recent weeks you have said that any deal would be better than a ‘no deal’ and the First Minister has said a ‘no deal’ would be catastrophic, but we’ve heard from you that the SNP will vote against the LCM and will be voting for a ‘no-deal Brexit’.”
He added: “Can you explain why the SNP has performed this extraordinary U-turn and has become the party of a ‘nodeal Brexit’?”
But Mr Russell said the question was not “worth responding to given the misrepresentation within it”. He said: “Which leading economists have lauded this as a wonderful deal? I’d be interested to have a list of them. If I was Michael Barnier, I would think it's a great deal as everything within his mandate has been achieved, but if it’s a great deal for them it is not a great deal for us.
“The deliberate misrepresentation you’ve been guilty of is a lack of knowledge in how treaties are done.”