NICOLA Sturgeon panned Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross for failing to engage “even vaguely competently” in the first Holyrood debate since parliament was reconvened.
The First Minister launched a scathing attack on the “barely coherent” Tory MSP after he attacked her party for entering government with the Greens.
Ross had been speaking in the chamber after the “First Minister’s Statement: Agreement with the Scottish Green Party” on Tuesday afternoon.
The Tory leader opened his contributions with an attack on the SNP-Green deal, which he claimed had “one overriding goal, separating Scotland from the United Kingdom”.
He claimed that the Scottish Government had made plans for indyref2 their priority ahead of any programme for government or the £1 billion NHS recovery plan.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon says Greens deal gives 'undeniable mandate' for indyref2
The Tory leader recycled his attacks from the day the SNP-Green deal was announced, saying that the cooperation agreement was bad for jobs, the economy, the oil and gas industry and on car drivers.
He noticeably did not include the “anti-family” criticism which he previously levelled at the two parties after accusations of “homophobic dog-whistling”.
The Tory leader was further cheered by his backbenchers after digging up a quote from Scottish Green co-leader Lorna Slater.
Speaking in 2019, the new Green minister said that a coalition with the SNP would be a “terrible idea” for her party after it was suggested that the two align in order to push for a second independence referendum.
More fully, Slater said a coalition would not work as the SNP often “vote with the Tories” and so her party may “end up signing up to policies that we don’t agree with at all”.
The current co-operation agreement contains explicitly outlined policy areas in which the two parties will disagree, and a raft where they will co-operate. This is a far cry from 2019 when Slater argued that her party and the SNP had “only one policy in common”: independence.
READ MORE: WATCH: Tory MSP Annie Wells's attack on SNP picked apart in car crash BBC interview
Ross then finished by asking two questions. He asked how many of “Scotland’s 100,000 oil and gas jobs” the SNP-Green deal would put at risk, and if Nicola Sturgeon would “admit” that the economic case for independence is “based on harming Scottish businesses”.
In her answer, the First Minister accused Ross of asking “barely coherent” questions and of missing the point altogether.
She said: “It seems that rising to the challenge of doing politics better, or even vaguely competently, is for the moment, beyond Douglas Ross. Hopefully as this parliament progresses that will change.
“In that barely coherent set of questions, I think Douglas Ross really misses the point.
“We face big challenges and it is incumbent on all of us, not to disregard our disagreements, but to work beyond our disagreements, find the areas where we can agree, and work together for the good of those we represent. That is how [the SNP and Greens are] going to proceed in this parliament.
“I think other parties in this chamber in response to that have a choice. They can join with us, respect our disagreements but try all of us collectively to work together, or push themselves more and more to the margins of Scottish politics where they simply hurl insults from the sidelines.”
The First Minister went on to say that Ross’s rhetoric is not only “deeply inappropriate” in the context of the scale of the challenges Scotland faces, but also “deeply ironic”.
She went on: “Right now across this country there are shortages of food across our supermarket shelves. In England, at least at the moment, the health service is being told to ration blood tests because of a shortage of test tubes. Children are told that there may be shortages leading to a lack of toys at Christmas. All because of Mr Ross’s party’s obsession with Brexit.
“Isn’t it about time he took some responsibility and recognised the importance of coming together to try and address these challenges.”
In answer to Ross’s two questions, Sturgeon said a just transition for workers in the North East away from oil and gas was at the “heart” of the SNP-Green deal, and said that £500 million of public funds had been allocated for this purpose.
She then addressed the question of independence, accusing Ross and his Tories of trying to deny the democratic result of the Holyrood elections in May.
Sturgeon finished: “It is only the politician who fears the outcome of such a choice that would seek to block to right of the Scottish people to make it.”
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