‘The Green tail is wagging the SNP dog’
Grandee Ewing goes to war on ‘wine bar revolutionaries’ and bitterly sums up where voters believe the REAL power lies…
THE SNP is ‘completely out of step’ with the public and the Greens are running the Scottish Government, a former minister has said.
Fergus Ewing claimed his party was ‘in office but not in power’ because of the influence of its coalition partners.
The Inverness MSP lashed out at policies cooked up as part of a deal brokered by Nicola Sturgeon that welcomed the Scottish Greens into government.
Mr Ewing also repeated his scathing declaration that the Greens are merely ‘wine bar revolutionaries’ and said the widespread opinion was that the ‘Green tail is wagging the SNP dog’.
He told the Sunday Mail: ‘I’m concerned about the consequences of this deal with the Greens. There is now a very prevalent view, especially in rural Scotland, that the Green tail is wagging the SNP dog.
‘Putting it even more bluntly people feel that the SNP may be in office but that the Greens are in power – and that is not a winning formula in politics.’
The former rural affairs secretary cited controversial policies including the Deposit Return Scheme, proposed fishing ban and gender recognition reforms (GRR) as evidence that his party has lost touch with public opinion.
Mr Ewing, who left government following the 2021 election, has been an outspoken critic of many of the policies being pursued by Humza Yousaf ’s government.
He told the Scottish Daily Mail last week that a commitment in the SNP and Greens’ Bute House agreement would consign fishermen to a ‘Green watery grave’.
He was one of six SNP rebels who refused to endorse the Scottish Government’s stance on Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) in a vote earlier this month, alongside both of Mr Yousaf’s leadership contest rivals.
Yesterday, Mr Ewing said the plans to make it easier to change gender by lowering the age limit and introducing self-ID were a ‘gigantic mistake’.
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack blocked the legislation from becoming law, in an unprecedented move that Mr Yousaf admits he is hell-bent on challenging in the courts.
Mr Ewing said: ‘The GRR Bill was passed by a substantial majority of MSPs, but it was opposed by a substantial majority of the people. On the two main provisions, women’s privacy and removing checks and balances down to the age 16, two thirds of the population were opposed to this.
‘So we are completely out of step with the people, the GRR was a gigantic mistake and challenging the UK Government in court is doomed to fail.
‘On the Deposit Return Scheme, this is the biggest disaster I have seen. Again it is doomed to fail, it won’t go ahead and we should be sitting down with the UK Government to find a solution.’
Last week, former SNP spin doctor Murray Foote claimed letting Mr Ewing ‘off the hook’ for criticism of the Government could lead to more dissent.
‘This is the biggest disaster I’ve seen’