HENRY McLeish has condemned Boris Johnson’s lockdown visit to Scotland, describing it as a “safari” and said the Prime Minister had “lost the plot” over the Union.
The former First Minister said Johnson had no idea how to save the UK from breaking up and his controversial trip will have boosted supported for independence.
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He said: “The stark warning is that unless Boris Johnson can move away from gimmicks and symbolism and useless safaris into Scotland and get down to the real business then he will only exacerbate the problems facing the Union.”
Referring to the infamous words of the French queen Marie Antoinette to her country’s starving people about to mount the 1789 revolution – in which she would lose her head at the guillotine – McLeish said: “It’s a let Scots eat cake visit. He’s not taking the issue seriously.”
Johnson’s visit came two days after the UK passed the milestone of 100,000 deaths to Covid, the largest number in Europe, and after Nicola Sturgeon reminded him of a travel ban in Scotland – in place to curb the spread of the virus – and advised him against the trip.
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Polls suggest voters believe Scotland within the UK had hindered the Edinburgh government’s fight against the virus with Scots believing it would have performed better under independence.
“It seems an unusual time to be visiting Scotland to give us a pandemic pep talk and talk about the benefits of working together,” the former Scottish Labour leader told The National.
“During Johnson’s first year in office he has heaped much contempt on Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland ... What worries me is that Johnson and his government have not grasped the seriousness of the plight of the Union at the present time.
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“There is a pending crisis, it is high noon for his government in relation to the Union and there is no sense of urgency ... What we’ve got [with his visit] is symbolism triumphing substance.”
He added: “It doesn’t wash with the Scottish people, they are immersed in the pandemic, picking up the pieces of Brexit and we now have a Prime Minister who emotionally, intellectually and politically has no idea how to tackle the crisis facing the Union.”
Johnson’s visit to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Livingston on Thursday followed 20 successive opinion polls recorded majority support for independence and surveys also showing growing support for a border poll and united Ireland.
It also came days after it was revealed his government had a new five-step plan to “save the Union”, which included rejecting a second referendum while simultaneously launching a campaign to persuade Scots of the benefits of the Union.
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Pointing to Johnson’s driving through of a hard Brexit – opposed by Scots – and the Internal Market Bill which allows the UK Government to legislate in areas that are devolved, McLeish said Johnson’s behaviour and policies would push “more and more people to independence”.
He also hit out at the PM’s plans to directly fund infrastructure and other large scale projects in Scotland despite such spending schemes being devolved to Holyrood.
The former Labour First Minister, who as a Scotland Office minister helped steer the legislation which set up the Scottish Parliament, through Westminster, criticised the PM’s “fanciful’ idea of building a tunnel between Scotland and Northern Ireland.
“He seems to have lost the plot,” said McLeish. “I urge Johnson to reconsider what he is doing. He wants to pick a fight. He wants to pick many fights. He wants to pretend that Scotland as a nation and as a devolved nation doesn’t exist.”
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McLeish, who is an advocate of a more federal UK, added that the only way for Johnson to “save the Union” was to “change the Union”.
Downing Street intended that Johnson’s trip to Scotland would demonstrate the benefits of the Union as he toured a vaccine laboratory and virus test centre in Scotland supported by his government.
During his visit he went to the Lighthouse Laboratory at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus in Glasgow, where coronavirus tests are processed.
He then met troops setting up a vaccination centre in the Castlemilk area of the city, bumping elbows to greet some of the soldiers.
The Prime Minister also visited the Valneva laboratory in Livingston, West Lothian, where experts are working on a coronavirus vaccine.
But instead the visit backfired with Glaswegians angry that he had come to their city during lockdown.
STUC general secretary Roz Royer described the trip as an “own goal”.
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