RUTH Davidson has been condemned for describing the movement for Scottish independence as a “fratricidal conflict”.
The Scottish Tory leader was also urged to apologise for “her shameless sell-out” on Scotland’s place in the single market after Theresa May indicated she wanted to take the UK out of it.
Attacking the prospect of a second vote on sovereignty following the EU ballot in which the UK voted as a whole to leave, while Scotland voted to remain, Davidson said: “Most of all, I believe we should avoid further instability and uncertainty. People do not want Brexit to be used to start yet another fratricidal conflict.”
She made the comments in a speech to the David Hume Institute in Edinburgh last night and they follow the First Minister telling May on Monday she had just “weeks” left to respond to the Scottish Government’s proposals allowing Scotland a deal to remain in the single market.
Davidson also used her speech to suggest polls point to a fall in support for independence, another issue on which the SNP challenged her.
The Scottish Tory leader hit out, too, at the Yes campaign in 2014, suggesting it had behaved like US President Donald Trump in portraying “inconvenient facts” as fake news.
A SNP spokesman last night called for her to apologise.
“The Tories have completely lost the plot – and Ruth Davidson’s use of inflammatory language by comparing legitimate political debate as ‘fratricidal conflict’ just shows how rattled she is,” he said.
“Ms Davidson should apologise for her shameless sell-out on Scotland’s place in the single market – and her Trump references are appropriate, given her own ‘alternative facts’ on recent polling, which actually shows support for an independence referendum at 50 per cent.
“Ruth Davidson misled the people of Scotland in the independence referendum when she claimed a No vote guaranteed our place in Europe, and she is now a champion of Brexit having previously claimed the case was built on ‘lies’.
“That just shows how she flip-flops on issues at the drop of a hat simply to please her Tory bosses in Westminster.”
During her speech, the Scottish Tory leader also mocked the SNP after reports suggested the party was poised to ditch its long standing support for an independent Scotland being a full member of the EU. A newspaper report on Monday quoted a senior SNP source as saying the party was likely to drop its commitment to independence in the EU in any new independence campaign and back a similar arrangement to that of Norway which is in the single market, but is not a member of the bloc.
The source believed the option would appeal to Yes voters who backed Leave and No voters who backed Remain and is supported by Eurosceptics such as former minister Alex Neil.
“If reports this week are to be believed, for the SNP hierarchy it is no longer about staying within the EU at all,” Davidson said. “Instead, SNP sources are now proposing that an independent Scotland should exist in a no-man’s land, half-way between the UK and the EU, but part of neither.”
Former first minister Alex Salmond yesterday insisted that the SNP continued to be committed to an independent Scotland in the EU.
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