NICOLA Sturgeon has branded Boris Johnson a liar after the Prime Minister said the SNP wanted an independent Scotland to have the euro as its currency.
Speaking at the Scottish Tory manifesto launch in Fife yesterday, he also claimed that a Scottish spaceport had almost been completed before being told by interim Scottish leader Jackson Carlaw that the project was only “on its way”.
In his speech, Johnson told the activists that “looming over the Corbyn-Sturgeon coalition is the threat that they jointly pose to our precious, fantastic Union with indyref2”.
He said the SNP leader had told the BBC’s Andrew Neil that an independent Scotland would look “to rejoin the EU, to join the euro, and to put up a border at Berwick” and “hand back the fantastic marine wealth of Scotland to Brussels”.
Sturgeon said these weren’t simple slips of the tongue.
Speaking during a campaign stop in Uddingston, she said: “I’m going to be pretty blunt about this, Boris Johnson was telling lies. Some people may say not for the first time and perhaps not for the last time.
“But we have got a Prime Minister who has shown, since he came to office, that the truth is a disposable commodity for him, he gets up and says whatever comes into his head.”
The SNP leader continued: “Boris Johnson poses a real threat to Scotland’s future, a Boris Johnson government taking Scotland out of the European Union against our will, with all the damage that will do, is a real and present danger to Scotland’s future prosperity.
“This election is an opportunity to play our part in stopping that from happening. The SNP is the main challenger in every Tory seat in Scotland, so if people do not want Boris Johnson to be calling the shots of Scotland for the foreseeable future, then voting SNP to stop that happening is a priority.”
During his speech, the Prime Minister also made clear that there would be no circumstances in which he would grant any request from the Scottish Government to hold another independence referendum.
“I certainly can rule out any such [referendum], I genuinely think any such referendum would be bad for our country,” he said.
“It’s not the way forward now. We would honour democracy, we would get the economy moving. This is a Conservative one-nation agenda and we want to get on with it.”
The Scottish Conservative manifesto pledges an extra £3.1bn for Scottish public services as a result of the Barnett consequentials from spending policies in England.
There was also a review of whisky and gin duty, and plans for a new “transformational” oil and gas sector deal – though there were few details on what that would involve.
The Prime Minister tried to laugh off questions about his popularity in Scotland. Over the weekend, a poll suggested he had an approval rating of minus 34. “We can build on that,” Johnson said.
Alex Cole-Hamilton, the Scottish LibDem election campaign manager, commented: “Boris Johnson lied his way through the referendum campaign. He has lied to former bosses, wives and girlfriends; he has lied to the Queen and now he is lying to the country when he says there is such a thing as a good Brexit deal.”
Scottish Greens MSP John Finnie added: “The Scottish Conservative manifesto simply piles on the agony for the most vulnerable in our communities, and is disastrous for the climate.
“The commitment that Universal Credit will continue to be rolled out shows the callous nature of the Tories. My constituents in Highland were amongst the first to be on the receiving end of this brutal policy, and we’ve seen a huge rise in hardship ever since.
“Plans to slash corporation tax will simply deprive our underfunded public services like health, education and social care of much needed funds.
“The environmental proposals are pie in the sky. Pinning hopes on oil and gas reserves we cannot afford to burn, while fantasising about unproven carbon capture technology is utterly irrational.”
Highlands and Islands Enterprise expects to submit a planning application for the Sutherland spaceport next month or in January.
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