WILLIE Rennie is expected to use his speech at the Scottish Liberal Democrat conference today to say that the next referendum on Scottish independence should be fought on “ideas and values, not identities and flags.”
He will tell the party faithful gathered at the Dewars Centre in Perth that the new case for the Union should be “a positive, uplifting one that focuses on the ties that bind us rather than the differences some would use to divide us”.
Rennie is expected to say: “Britain is full of people who care. We, together, care about the environment, poverty at home and abroad, the sick, the elderly, the young. Our country is jammed full of people who want a better world.
“British people, with compassion and care, digging into their pockets. We should celebrate our generosity and compassion. It is a mark of the country that we are. No Scottish nationalist will tell me that I should be ashamed. I am proud of who we are. Our United Kingdom is an uplifting, mutually beneficial partnership that we should cherish rather than trash.”
An SNP spokesman replied: “The LibDems can try to paint Tory Britain as a land of milk and honey but people in Scotland know that Theresa May wants to drive our economy off a hard Brexit cliff edge – with all the damage that would cause to jobs, household incomes and our economy. If the UK Government remains unwilling to listen to the Scottish Government’s reasonable compromise proposals then an independence referendum may be the only way to protect our vital national interests.”
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael said Theresa May’s Tories didn’t understand Scotland, and shouldn’t be in charge of the No campaign.
“The biggest danger – and I suspect that Number 10 does not really understand this – is [in planning] to fight the last war,” he said. “For most of the last campaign, the fairly complacent expectation was that there would be a No vote – right up until the last couple of weeks. That is not going to be the case this time.
“Too much of the way in which the campaign was fought was allowed to be characterised as a contest between governments in Holyrood and Westminster. That cannot be allowed to happen again. It will have to be a much more Scottish-centric campaign.”
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