Swinney: UK faces winter of discontent
The UK is facing a “winter of discontent” after the Tories pushed ahead with Brexit, taking Britain out of the European Union, Scotland’s deputy first minister has warned.
With supermarkets having already experienced issues with shortages, he argued that such problems show how “Westminster isn’t working”.
Swinney used his speech to the SNP national conference yesterday to hit out at the “muscular unionism” of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government. He went on to add that the prime minister and his colleagues simply “do not have the brains to match the brawn”.
The Westminster government will “plaster the country with union flags” as well as “take every opportunity to undermine the Scottish Government”, Swinney said.
The deputy first minister went on to blast the Conservatives for pushing ahead with Brexit in the midst of the pandemic, telling
SNP delegates that “there is perhaps no greater example of how the Union has failed Scotland than the sorry saga of Brexit”.
He said: “Every sector will feel the chill wind brought on by Brexit. And there is no end in sight.
“The Tories are unwilling and unable to take the simple steps required to fix the problem they have created. The UK is facing a winter of discontent and Westminster isn’t working.”
The first “winter of discontent” occurred in the late 1970s, when strikes and industrial action were exacerbated by the coldest weather for 16 years. It left some remote areas of the UK isolated and put the then Labour government under intolerable pressure.