BORIS VOWS TO BATTLE FOR UNION
PM clears air with Scots Tory leader – as he clashes with Sturgeon over new referendum
BORIS Johnson and Ruth Davidson yesterday vowed to join forces to defeat the SNP’s renewed bid to break up Britain.
The Prime Minister attempted to overcome his differences with the Scottish Conservative leader by uniting with her to defend the Union at a crunch meeting in Edinburgh.
They held ‘positive’ talks in the Scottish parliament just a day after Miss Davidson revealed she will oppose any bid to leave the European Union without a deal.
During the ‘constructive’ 45-minute conversation, they vowed to focus on their ‘shared objectives’ of safeguarding the Union and striking a new EU deal.
Mr Johnson then told Nicola Sturgeon at their first face-to-face meeting there should not be another vote on Scotland’s future. He insisted the SNP should stick
to its commitment to make the 2014 vote a ‘once in a generation’ event.
During his visit yesterday, Mr Johnson said that vote was ‘decisive’. He added: ‘There was, I think, at least a ten-point margin and everybody made clear at the time – even the Scottish Nationalist Party, I seem to recollect – that this was a once in a generation vote.
‘I think the confidence of the public in politicians would be undermined yet further if we were to go back on that and hold another referendum. It was clear, it was decisive.
‘The Union is fantastic – it’s the most successful political partnership anywhere in the world. Let’s keep it going.’
Pressed on whether he would rule out another vote while he is PM, Mr Johnson said: ‘It was a once in a generation consultation of the people. We did it in 2014 and the people were assured then it was a once in a genFollowing eration consultation. I see no reason now for the politicians to go back on that promise.
‘It would be wrong to go back on that promise to the people of the United Kingdom, but above all to the people of Scotland. They voted decisively and, in my view, they were right.’
He also hit back at critics, including Gordon Brown, who have claimed he will be the last Prime Minister of the UK. He said: ‘I say that they’re grossly underestimating the United Kingdom.’
Later, Mr Johnson met Miss Sturgeon at her official Edinburgh residence, Bute House. talks – 25 minutes one-to-one and a further 25 minutes with officials – a Number 10 spokesman said: ‘The Prime Minister said he was a passionate believer in the power of the Union and he would work tirelessly to strengthen the United Kingdom and improve the lives of people right across Scotland.’
Miss Sturgeon said: ‘We had a very lively discussion. In both sessions, we had a very lively exchange of views about independence. I made clear my government’s intentions to pass the framework Bill to allow a referendum to take place next year.
‘He made the case he was for the Union and didn’t think Scotland should have the right to choose. And we had a to-ing and fro-ing on the pros and cons of independence.
‘At one point I suggested to him we didn’t have the debate in Bute House, that we took that debate out into the public and let the public decide.
‘I even suggested we might debate it live on television. We had a very robust exchange of views about that.’
Miss Sturgeon also claimed that Mr Johnson had adopted an ‘anti-democratic’ approach to Scotland by insisting ‘we have to just like it or lump it with Brexit’. She said: ‘It’s not for me to decide whether Scotland becomes independent; it’s not for him to decide; it’s for the people to decide.
‘It’s perfectly legitimate to make a case against independence, but the idea you can block it is not in line with the Claim of Right.’
IN damning figures sneaked out over the summer recess, Scotland was revealed as the drug death capital of the world.
You might have thought prolific tweeter Nicola Sturgeon would have taken to social media to comment on this social catastrophe.
But she was on holiday, and a few days later was filmed happily clapping along on stage with crime writers, including Val McDermid, who were performing in a band at a literary festival.
Nearly a fortnight on, the First Minister has yet to make any meaningful intervention – though she was happy enough to dress up as a Viking for a picture posted on her Twitter feed on Saturday.
Sporting a winged helmet and brandishing an axe as she launched the SNP by-election campaign in Lerwick, Shetland, she captioned the snap: ‘Ready for you, Prime Minister!’
Well, at least we know her priorities, but her rather juvenile photograph raises an important question: Is she, or her enervated government, anywhere near ready for that battle?
After all, Boris Johnson as Prime Minister presents something of an open goal for the SNP, as in the eyes of most of its membership he is the devil incarnate: a Tory toff who’s toxic for many Scots.
For SNP Dunfermline and West Fife MP Douglas Chapman, the case for independence ‘stands on its own merits, but this posh boy dictatorship will drive many fair-minded Scots towards us – encourage them, use civility, kindness and their love of democracy’.
Not much civility on show there, and yet jibes about class litter many SNP ruminations about Mr Johnson’s promotion – almost as if, dronelike, Miss Sturgeon’s MPs and MSPs are complying with some diktat from party HQ to highlight the new PM’s ‘poshness’ as his Achilles’ heel.
Most ‘fair-minded Scots’ will remain unpersuaded, not least because they don’t much care about class as long as the job gets done.
And yet Mr Johnson is
almost universally perceived within the independence movement as the embodiment of the longed-for ‘Indyref 2’ trigger; the crystallising moment that creates the justification for a second tilt at destroying the Union.
Mind you, almost anything these days qualifies as such a trigger – last year, some independence supporters believed a row about which powers would be handed to Holyrood following Brexit could lead to a second referendum.
Broadcaster Lesley Riddoch said, with some understatement, that ‘fertiliser composition and food hygiene [some of the powers at the centre of the dispute] may seem unusual triggers for Indyref 2’.
But she insisted the ‘tone deaf Tory Government could yet be hoist by its own petard’.
The row was so esoteric no one really bought the Riddoch thesis – not even the SNP diehards who recognised that persuading voters of the burning need for oppressed Scots to exercise complete control over fertiliser ingredients was a tough sell.
Fractured
Mr Johnson is a more credible target for Nationalist ire, but at precisely the juncture when the SNP needs to be on its mettle, the party and wider movement are hopelessly fractured.
Despondent at Miss Sturgeon’s inertia on pulling that Indyref 2 trigger, some Nationalists, including Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil, and Chris McEleny, the SNP group leader on Inverclyde Council, have resurrected madcap plans to push for a unilateral declaration of independence.
When Mr Johnson became PM, Miss Sturgeon said she might ‘accelerate’ her plans for another independence referendum – even if all the available evidence suggests she is merely accelerating towards another brick wall.
Every day, cracks in the previously impregnable edifice of internal party discipline are widening, as rival factions enter into open combat, while ambitious MPs and MSPs are beginning to believe Miss Sturgeon’s position is no longer unassailable.
They include Joanna Cherry, QC, a supporter of Alex Salmond, the former First Minister still regarded by many as the separatists’ spiritual leader, despite his impending trial on a series of sex charges.
Then there is the prospect of a parliamentary inquiry into a botched Scottish Government misconduct probe into Mr Salmond – which has been dogged by concerns key emails and messages may have been irretrievably deleted. How much time Miss Sturgeon has spent preparing for the inevitable fallout from these events, which could see her having to move out of Bute House, is anyone’s guess – but it’s hard to believe there haven’t been any sleepless nights.
Meanwhile, SNP members and parliamentarians are at loggerheads over reform of the Gender Recognition Act which, if passed, would allow trans people to self-identify and remove the requirement for medical evidence.
Infighting is rife – senior party members disclosed last week that they were seeking legal advice after posts from a private message board were made public.
This came after Nationalist Dr Lisa Cameron received more than 1,000 abusive messages following a Commons vote on liberalising abortion laws in Northern Ireland.
The East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow MP voted against the move, and many of the abusive messages, which appeared on a private Facebook page, were made public.
For hard-pressed families fretting about mortgages and rising tax bills, or concerned about falling school standards, this incessant bickering is about as far removed from the priorities of their everyday lives as it’s possible to imagine.
Activists are also in disarray: the All Under One Banner pro-independence group is mired in a row over claims of misappropriated cash, only weeks after former Nationalist MP Natalie McGarry was sentenced to 18 months in jail for embezzling more than £25,600 from separatist organisations – including cash for a food bank.
In government, the SNP’s sclerotic policy agenda has been marred by failure, a profound lack of innovative thinking, and chaotic implementation.
Public services are in a state of decline after more than a decade of negligent stewardship by a party that devotes more time to attempting to cover up its myriad shortcomings than trying to remedy them.
Abyss
Miss Sturgeon has never looked weaker, and her zombie government is shuffling towards an abyss of its making.
By contrast, Mr Johnson in his first few days in office has displayed a level of dynamism that Miss Sturgeon – even in full Viking regalia – would struggle to match.
His ramping-up of police recruitment, and other spending commitments in England, mean more cash for Scotland – and the prospect of shelving planned cuts to officer numbers.
Nor did Mr Johnson come empty-handed on his first visit north of the Border as PM yesterday, announcing that Scotland will receive some of the £300million earmarked for ‘growth deal’ investments to boost the economy.
With his staunch defence of the Union, and his refusal to countenance another Indyref, Mr Johnson has shown he can be the antidote to a discredited Nationalist project that promises yet more division, stagnation and policy paralysis.
Far from providing the SNP with another chance to realise its dream of splitting up the UK, the new Prime Minister – the ‘posh boy’ the party wants us to despise – could hasten its demise.