PM insists indyref 2 ‘irrelevant’ amid vaccine row on Scots visit
● Sturgeon to make supply figures public despite UK secrecy demand
The Prime Minister has dismissed the debate over Scottish independence as “irrelevant”, as he warned the Scottish Government not to publish Covid vaccine supply figures. Sturgeon revealed she would make the numbers public, despite a demand from the UK government to keep them secret.
Speaking during a visit to Scotland, Boris Johnson agreed that there needed to be as “maximum possible transnicola parency" around the vaccination programme – but warned that this had to be measured against threatening “national security of supply”.
The prime minister also used the visit to argue that the priority should be "fighting this pandemic and coming back more strongly together" rather than arguing about the constitution.
And he praised the "amazing performance" of Scottish people in the "national effort" to fight the pandemic.
The First Minister said while her
Boris Johnson has dismissed calls for a referendum as “completely irrelevant”.
The Prime Minister said calls for another independence referendum were a distraction to dealing with the pandemic.
Instead he said it was “fantastic to see real Scottish academic expertise brought to bear on the problem” of coronavirus.
Further, he said it was “inspiring to see Scottish troops working to get the vaccine into the arms of the people of Scotland”.
Mr Johnson said: “Valneva, which is a great success for Scotland, they are on the path, I hope and believe, to creating a successful vaccine and if that vaccine is approved by the HRA then we'll have 60 billion doses of it by the end of this year for the whole of the British people and so it's a success for Scotland and a success for Britain.”
The Prime Minister, when asked about opinion polls, said that he did not believe Scots wanted a second independence referendum.
“My strong feeling is that the whole country needs to work together,” he said.
"I want to work together with the devolved administration to get through the pandemic and to bounce back strongly. I think that's the focus that people have. another referendum is really not the priority of people, either in Scotland or any other part of the UK.”
"We had one of these in 2014 and we were told it was a once-in-a-generation event, so let's take them at their word.”
Mr Johnson also gave his backing to Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross and said “wild horses” would not keep him away from Scotland when the election campaign began.
Responding to concerns about the rollout of the vaccine in Scotland, he also said he wanted to work with all authorities to “speed things up where we possibly can.”