THE SNP have said “no-one can trust” Tory leadership hopeful Douglas Ross after he claimed there will be no second independence referendum as Nicola Sturgeon had signed an “agreement with the UK and Scottish governments that it would be once in a generation”.
The MP – who looks certain to become the next leader of the Scottish Tories this week – also claimed the House of Lords was more democratic than Holyrood.
In an interview with BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland, Ross acknowledged that “in the last three opinion polls there has been a sustained move towards support for independence”.
He said: “Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that has happened when the SNP has not been speaking about separation.
“I don’t want us to focus on the debate we had just six years ago. I want us to focus on the next five years of this parliament.
“I think the majority of Scots want better education for their children and grandchildren, and a health service that is not under investigation ... good jobs that are well paid and a strong economy.
“Nicola Sturgeon did sign that agreement with the UK and Scottish Governments that it would be once in a generation.”
Ross was presumably referring to the Edinburgh Agreement, which transferred power from Westminster to Holyrood to ensure the 2014 independence referendum was legally watertight.
However, there was no time limit on further independence referendums included in the agreement.
On the House of Lords, Ross said: “The revising role of the House of Lords is an important role.
“In the Scottish parliament it is simply a committee structure where you have a majority government that can control both the parliamentary side of work and also the revising committee work, and I don’t think that is healthy at times.”
The SNP said Ross is “trying to rewrite history”, with depute leader Keith Brown saying: “The Scottish Tories under Douglas Ross and Baroness Davidson are same as they ever were. And they’ve been caught trying to rewrite history, again. Fact is Douglas Ross is nothing more than Boris Johnson’s man in Scotland – and clearly no-one can trust a word he says.”
Meanwhile, it’s been revealed that Michelle Ballantyne only agreed to back Ross’s leadership bid on the “understanding that we will be a centre-right, Boris-backing, Brexit-positive, anti-nat party”.
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