TORY chief Jackson Carlaw made a bizarre intervention in the Brexit debate yesterday, telling Nicola Sturgeon that she’d better not vote with the Tories. Instead, he said, she should vote with the Tories.
Carlaw, who is deputising for Ruth Davidson during her maternity leave, tweeted the odd warning, laying bare the full extent of the Tory Party’s rift over Europe.
Ironically, Carlaw’s tweet came just days after senior Tory MSP Annie Wells said there was a “civil war in the SNP” because of the fallout over Alex Salmond’s fight with the Scottish Government over sexual harassment allegations, and his controversial fundraiser.
Carlaw tweeted a picture of him speaking to the BBC, and wrote: “Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP need to decide whether they will back the PM’s Brexit deal or walk through the division lobbies with Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson.”
The Eastwood MSP was a staunch Remainer, until Leave won the referendum.
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He was mocked for the ultimatum, not least because the SNP will likely not back either of the Brexit visions being offered by the different factions of the Tory Party.
“We’re through the looking glass when senior Tories are accusing other parties of aligning themselves with other senior Tories. What an epic shambles,” tweeted Green MSP Ross Greer. SNP MSP Gillian Martin tweeted: “So here are the options according to Jackson Carlaw: frying pan or fire.”
It won’t just be the SNP that Carlaw struggles to convince over Brexit; he may find it tricky to make his own Scottish MPs not vote with the wrong sort of Tories.
Hardline Brexiteer and Aberdeen South Tory MP Ross Thomson yesterday tweeted: “The #ChequersPlan means: no control of our trade, no control over our borders, no control over our laws, no control over our money, no control over goods rules.
“Leaving the U.K. as a voiceless EU rule taker. That’s not taking back control! Time to #ChuckChequers.”
Infighting over Europe is set to intensify in the Tory Party as the Westminster Parliament returns today, with Brexiteers split on whether or not to force Theresa May out of office.
David Davis said he backs May to remain in Number 10. He told Good Morning Britain that now was not the time for “personality politics”. Asked if it would be better if May stood down, the former Brexit secretary, who has been critical of the Prime Minister’s Chequers proposals said: “No, we don’t need any more turbulence right now.
“What matters in all of this is not the personality politics, it’s the outcome at the end.”
That followed another brutal intervention from Boris Johnson. Writing in his weekly column for The Telegraph, the former foreign secretary said May was entering negotiations with Brussels having already surrendered
“The reality is that in this negotiation the EU has so far taken every important trick. The UK has agreed to hand over £40bn of taxpayers’ money for two-thirds of diddly squat.”
Johnson said that by adopting the Chequers plan, in which the UK would adopt a common rule book for the trade of food and goods, “we have gone into battle with the white flag fluttering over our leading tank”.
He said it would be “impossible for the UK to be more competitive, to innovate, to deviate, to initiate, and we are ruling out major free trade deals”.
Johnson added that under the current plan: “We will remain in the EU taxi; but this time locked in the boot, with absolutely no say on the destination. We won’t have taken back control – we will have lost control.”
Downing Street rejected that criticism, saying Johnson was offering “no new ideas” on Brexit.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “The Chequers proposals are the only credible and negotiable plan which has been put forward and which will deliver on the will of the British people.
“There are no new ideas in this article to respond to. What we need at this time is serious leadership with a serious plan. That’s exactly what the country has with this prime minister and this Brexit plan.”
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May’s former deputy Damian Green – who was forced to resign from government after lying about looking at pornography on his office computer – told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Johnson didn’t have a plan, only flowery language. Green said: “High-stakes rhetoric, use of words like ‘surrender’ and ‘white flag’ and ‘treachery’ and so on, that some newspapers have used, are absolutely what we don’t need in the current circumstance.
“What’s interesting now is that the only plan on the table is the British Government’s plan. Michel Barnier [the EU’s chief negotiator] hasn’t got a plan, those in my own party who object to Chequers don’t have a plan. So let’s hear what other people have.”
Green added: “But it is absolutely certain that there is no parliamentary majority in the House of Commons for a hard Brexit. So I’ll be interested to see what those who are saying: ‘Chequers isn’t good enough, we need a much harder Brexit’, what do they propose to get through the House of Commons?”
There was support for Johnson’s Telegraph article from Ukip, who said it showed that the former foreign secretary was turning into a “Kipper”.
Party leader Gerard Batten said: “It seems Boris Johnson is finally catching up with Ukip – we’ve been saying that Theresa May is a committed Remainer since the very beginning of the process and always intended to throw the match.
“Make no mistake, the Tories never had any intention of getting us out of the EU. Johnson must bear his own responsibility because he was involved with David Davis in setting up the initial negotiating strategy when he was foreign secretary.
“Perhaps if he wasn’t so loyal to the Tories and put his country first, he would have made these statements much sooner.”
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