Tory MP hits out at colleagues who are ‘like the SNP’
A SCOTTISH Tory MP has criticised English Conservative colleagues by saying they have “more in common” with the SNP than they do with unionism.
Stephen Kerr, who will be voting for the Prime Minister’s deal to leave the EU, said party hardliners displayed the same sort of “romanticised” and “sometimes xenophobic” attitudes as some Scottish nationalists.
He also said that Scottish and English nationalists suffered from “arrogance” and a “detachment from reality”.
An SNP spokesperson said: “The two futures facing the people of Scotland could not be more different – a Tory Westminster Government which is determined to cut the UK off from the world – or the positive, outward-looking Scotland which the SNP is proud to endorse, and which Scotland’s economy badly needs.
“It is for Stephen Kerr to explain why he continues to endorse the former over the latter.”
Theresa May’s plan to take the UK out of the European Union is facing defeat this month after a backlash by Tory MPs showed no sign of abating.
Her right-wing colleagues, who failed to topple her as Prime Minister last month, loathe the draft agreement she struck with EU negotiators and are relaxed about a no-deal departure.
Although her plan is expected to be defeated heavily, May has received strong, but not unanimous, support from her contingent of Scottish Tory MPs.
Kerr, who was elected to serve the Stirling constituency in 2017, voted for Brexit but has said he backs May’s draft agreement. Speaking to The Herald on Sunday, he is also firmly against a no-deal exit and believes crashing out could “pour petrol on the embers of nationalism in Scotland”.
He also had strong words for MP colleagues who he believes are motivated by nationalism, not unionism: “My concern about the attitude of some of my English Conservative colleagues is that they have more in common with the SNP, and their attitudes, than sometimes I think they have with conservatism and unionism,” he said.
“They have a very similar, black and white, sometimes romanticised, sometimes xenophobic attitude towards other people.”
He continued: “Scottish nationalism, like all nationalism, is not positive in my eyes. I see the same kind of attitudes - arrogance, detachment from reality – I see that among some of my colleagues.”
Kerr added: “I have sat in meetings with English Conservatives and listened to them try to tell people who are running successful corporations how they should be running their businesses.
“They themselves have got no credentials to give that advice, and no basis in fact for the advice they are giving, other than a set of ideological positions which, frankly, when they are held up to the light, lack in any substance at all.
He described the Prime Minister as a “genuine unionist”, but said: “My concern about many of the voices that fill up the airwaves and fill the column inches … is they are not unionists at all. They are English nationalists.”