SCOTTISH Conservatives are privately “livid” about Boris Johnson’s new immigration plans, it has emerged.
The party did not put up an MSP, MP or UK minister for media interviews last night despite broadcasters asking for a party representative on news and current affairs shows.
Scottish Government Finance minister Ben MacPherson, whose remit include migration, appeared on the BBC's The Nine and STV's Scotland Tonight to condemn Johnson's plans which he argued would damage Scotland's economy.
This morning it was reported a source in the Conservative group at Holyrood told The Times that “most of the MSPs are completely livid”.
New party leader Jackson Carlaw failed to commend the policy, insisting that he would like “to see an immigration system reflecting the needs of the places that need migration most”.
Warnings were sounded yesterday that the Home Office proposals to stop providing visas to low-skilled migrant workers as part of a shift to a points-based system would harm Scotland’s economy.
Donald Macaskill, chief executive of Scottish Care, which represents hundreds of private care homes, said UK ministers were living “in cloud cuckoo land”, while the Scottish Tourism Alliance said that the plans were a “major threat to Scotland’s tourism industry”.
Jackson Carlaw, the Scottish Tory leader, promised to lobby Whitehall on behalf of the system’s critics.
Scottish Tories were also said to be angry with the Home Office’s instant dismissal of Nicola Sturgeon’s offer to discuss — and compromise on — her plans published last month for a Scottish visa, with an angry phone call reported to have been made from Holyrood to Westminster.
Yesterday the First Minister said that the end to freedom of movement would be “devastating” for Scotland. She said: “It is impossible to overstate how devastating this UK government policy will be for Scotland’s economy. Our demographics mean we need to keep attracting people here, this makes it so much harder. Getting power over migration in the Scottish parliament is now a necessity for our future prosperity.”
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