PROJECT QUEER
Sturgeon launches bizarre scaremongering campaign claiming powers will be removed from Holyrood despite Tory White Paper on Brexit that promises to do the exact opposite
NICOLA Sturgeon last night launched her own version of Project Fear by warning that Brexit could strip Holyrood of a raft of powers.
The First Minister was accused of “ridiculous scaremongering” after she insisted the vote to leave the European Union had opened the door to “an attack on the very foundations of the devolved parliament”.
In her latest bid to boost support for independence and justify a second referendum, the SNP leader claimed Tory MPs are secretly planning to snatch back power from MSPs.
She said: “The Brexit process has emboldened a now powerful Westminster faction which never accepted devolution, and which now sees it as an opportunity to rein in the Scottish Parliament.
“In place of a multinational United Kingdom democracy, they see Brexit as the way to claw back ground.”
Sturgeon’s warning in a speech to the David Hume Institute in Edinburgh was quickly debunked, because the UK Government’s recent White Paper on leaving the EU guarantees no powers will be removed from Holyrood – and says Brexit will, in fact, mean more devolution.
A spokesman for the Tory Government added: “These claims completely misrepresent our position. We have been very clear that no decisions currently taken by Holyrood will be taken away.
“We have also said that we will use the opportunity of bringing decision-making back to the UK to ensure that more decisions are devolved.”
But Sturgeon insisted: “Far from the promises of the Leave campaign that a Brexit vote would automatically see swathes of new powers repatriated from Brussels to Holyrood, the Tories are actually threatening to strip the Scottish Parliament, and the other devolved administrations, of some of their powers.
“It is clear from their statements that even elements of farming and fishing policy – which have been wholly devolved competences from day one – now risk being taken back to Westminster.
“It would be a gross betrayal of the claims and promises made during the EU referendum campaign. And, more profoundly, it would fundamentally undermine the basis of the existing devolution settlement.”
Opponents claimed the intervention showed Sturgeon was desperately trying to manufacture support for another indyref.
SNP strategists have been dismayed that Brexit has sparked no noticeable increase in support for independence.
Senior party sources have also admitted recent canvassing has detected a significant number of 2014 Yes voters who are unhappy with Sturgeon’s pro-EU message.
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said: “This hyperbole from the First Minister takes synthetic grievance to a whole new level. Frankly, she sounds shrill.
“Nicola Sturgeon’s attempt to use Brexit to manufacture the case for a second referendum has quite simply failed.
“She should now take it off the table so Scotland and the UK can work to get the best Brexit deal possible.”
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale added: “This is ridiculous scaremongering from Nicola Sturgeon.
“The Scottish Parliament has major new powers over tax and welfare, which the SNP simply refuse to use.
“Rather than claiming there is a ‘grave threat’ to devolution, Nicola Sturgeon could instead use the powers at her disposal to introduce a 50p top rate of income tax or increase child benefit, rather than picking yet another constitutional fight.”
Sturgeon has repeatedly accused opponents of using “Project Fear” tactics by scaremongering about the possible impact of independence.
Asked to back up her claims last night, sources close to the SNP leader pointed to comments from Davidson that it would be “foolhardy” to give MSPs the power to create an entirely separate Scottish replacement for the Common Agricultural Policy.
In her speech, Sturgeon said Scots must now decide how to respond to the alleged Tory power grab, adding: “The basic question we face is actually quite simple – what sort of country do we want Scotland to be and who gets to decide?”
The First Minister insisted another independence poll would “almost be a necessary way of giving the people of Scotland a say in our own future direction” if the UK Government don’t change tack on Brexit.
She added: “It would offer Scotland a proper choice on whether or not to be part of a post-Brexit UK – a UK that is undoubtedly on a fundamentally different path today than that envisaged in 2014.
“And in the absence of compromise from the UK Government, it may offer the only way in which our voice can be heard, our interests protected and our values upheld.”