DOUGLAS Ross’s speech against indyref2 descended into chaos as the First Minister mocked his “playground politics”.
It came in a debate scheduled after the First Minister laid out her Programme for Government (PfG) to Holyrood, and put a second independence referendum at the heart of her legislative agenda.
The Tory leader spent a huge part of his speech criticising plans for a second referendum - and barely mentioned any of the other legislative plans put forward by the Scottish Government.
Opening the debate, Ross began by saying that the First Minister had her “priorities wrong” by postponing the PfG last week to work on the co-operation deal with the Scottish Greens.
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He then said the First Minister still had her priorities wrong because she put an independence referendum “front and centre” of her plans for the year ahead.
However, heckling SNP MSPs shouted the Tory leader down and he was forced to take multiple interventions as they pointed out the futility of his speech.
Ross said: “In a statement that is 27 pages long it takes to just the fourth paragraph for Nicola Sturgeon to mention independence, it's right up there in front of all the other priorities we should have …”
As the SNP benches started to talk over Ross, he responded: “SNP members are heckling, quite happy to take an intervention from any member who thinks it's correct that in the time of a pandemic that it's right for the First Minister to yet again prioritise independence over anything else.”
Alasdair Allan found Ross's response to his interjection amusing
Alasdair Allan (pictured), SNP MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, interjected and said: “He mentions all this as if it was never made clear either in the manifesto or in the result of the election that the SNP is in favour of a referendum for independence.”
Ross then claimed that the election was one where the SNP “failed to get a majority” and said that all MSPs priority should be recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
He added: “But that’s not the priority of this First Minister who told the people to trust her to prioritse the recovery who has put front and centre paragraph four of her statement.”
The First Minister took the opportunity to chastise Ross for leaping to criticism of an independence referendum and ignoring the substance of the rest of her speech.
She said: “We agree on the recovery from Covid I wonder if Douglas Ross would take the opportunity to comment on any of the 26 and a half pages of the statement that set out plans, bold, ambitious plans to lead Scotland out of this pandemic.
“It’s his speech, but perhaps we can hear some of that in due course.”
A few moments later, whilst Ross was discussing wrap around care for children, he stopped and accused the First Minister of “chuntering away” to Health Secretary Humza Yousaf.
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Clearly infuriated, the Tory leader snapped at the First Minister and said “Sorry, sorry, First Minister when I’m standing you have to sit.
“We were told there’s going to be a new style of politics, and it seems the First Minister likes to announce a new style of politics but not deliver it herself, so I will give way.”
Nicola Sturgeon did not hold back on her scathing response, and said: “Douglas Ross wanted to know what I was saying to my health secretary, what I was actually saying to my health secretary was that listening to Douglas Ross was like listening to playground politics and couldn’t we all raise our game.
“So now that he wants to join me in that, perhaps we can hear some substance from Douglas Ross instead of what we’ve had five minutes into his speech.”
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