Sturgeon: No bone in my body is anti-english
●First Minister defends herself against accusations of ‘damaging rhetoric’
Nicola Sturgeon has insisted she does not have an “anti-english bone” in her body and that her handling of the Coronavirus crisis has been driven purely by public health concerns.
Opponents have accused the First Minister of “damaging rhetoric” after a Scottish clothing shop raised concerns about negative attitudes towards English people during the pandemic, although this was not specifically attributed to Ms Sturgeon.
A protest was staged on the Border earlier this month with demonstrators calling on people from England to turn back amid fears about the spread of the virus.
The protest followed warnings from the First Minister she may impose quarantine on English visitors if case numbers diverge significantly north and south of the Border.
At her daily coronavirus briefing yesterday, Ms Sturgeon said she had not seen the comments made by the clothing shop founder.
She said: “There’s not an anti-english bone in my body, I don’t have an anti-english fibre in my being.
“I come from partly English stock, my grandmother was English and I lead a party that is full of English people.
“We’re dealing with a public health crisis right now and I think anybody who tries to say that the decisions we are taking in a public health sense are somehow political, constitutional or suggest in any way an attitude towards people from other parts of the UK, are just plain wrong.
“I would ask people to think carefully about any suggestion that type.”
The founder of outdoor specialists CCW Clothing, which has branches in St Andrews, Fife, and Callander, Stirling, and in the West End of Glasgow raised concerns at the weekend about the impact of recent tensions on her business. Liz Geddes warned
Nationalist rhetoric will put tourists off visiting Scotland and hit the business harder as it tries to recover from months of closure during the Coronavirus pandemic.
She said: “Some of the rhetoric against the English does not help. Our business is built on English and European visitors coming to Scotland and we make them welcome.”
“We would not be in business if it were not for the English visitors. We are all in this together.”
Tory economy spokesman Maurice Golden criticised the First Minister’s approach for encouraging her “extreme Nationalist base”.
He said: “It’s quite obvious that the First Minister’s damaging rhetoric on closing the Border would have a negative effect on tourism and our economy as a whole. While the First Minister’s words may delight her extreme Nationalist base they are actively hindering Scotland’s economic recovery.
“For three months thousands of businesses have shut down in adherence to the SNP government’s rules, costing themselves millions.
“The SNP government must now put Scottish jobs first and help businesses rebuild instead of pursuing their own divisive agenda.”
The First Minister pointed to many part of the world where “particular parts” of countries have had internal borders closed to suppress the spread of the virus.
She added: “The worst think I can do for any business right now is to stop being cautious about controlling this virus. If we do stop being cautious, we risk again as we see in other parts of the country, a further shutdown of parts of the economy up to and including a potential lockdown. That will be even more devastating with potentially even more and longer term damage to the economy.
“So no business should be wanting me to drop that cautious approach because it is in all our interests , however difficult it is right now for businesses and I don’t underestimate that, but if we don’t build a sustainable recovery, then we don’t have a recovery at all.”
Asked whether quarantine restrictions on people arriving from other parts of the UK are inevitable if Scotland’s deaths and infection rates continue to be lower than England, Ms Sturgeon said “nothing is inevitable”.
But said she would not “shy away” from such a move if she believed it would help control the spread of coronavirus.
She said: “As First Minister of the Scottish Government, we will take careful decisions based on evidence.”