THE SNP has begun “ramping up” its attack on the Tory leadership contest’s Brexiteers – especially bookies’ favourite Boris Johnson, according to the party’s depute leader Keith Brown.
The National can reveal that the first strand was planned some days ago and takes the form of a leaflet that will be dropped through letter boxes across the country by the SNP.
The leaflet has a picture of Johnson, but castigates all Brexiteer Tories, under the heading: “Time to choose our own future. Before somebody else does.”
Keith Brown, the SNP’s depute leader, said: “With the Tory leadership campaign starting on Monday, we’ll be ramping up the pressure on the Tories north of the Border.
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“The Tory Party has just scored its worst election result since the Reform Act in 1832, yet the leadership candidates are arrogantly strutting around saying they won’t ‘allow’ Scotland to have a choice over our nation’s future.
“So we’re going to make sure the Tories get the message – we have had enough of Westminster telling us what Scotland can and can’t do.
“This new phase of our summer campaign highlights the dangers of Scotland being stuck in a post Brexit, broken Britain. Scotland can choose a different path, not tethered to the failed Westminster system consumed by Brexit chaos.
“It’s all part of our building the case for an independent Scotland, and engaging our mass membership in a process of hearing the hopes and aspirations of people in every community in Scotland.
“Any attempts by the Tories to block the people of Scotland from having a choice will be undemocratic and totally unsustainable but, more than that, it will drive Scotland towards independence.
“The SNP will not stand by and allow the Boris Johnson or anyone else in Downing Street to reduce democracy in Scotland to a mockery.
“So whoever is PM, and whatever disastrous Brexit policy they pursue, one thing is clear – there must be an alternative for Scotland.
“As the UK continues a damaging Brexit path, more and more people in Scotland will opt for the positive choice of joining the other small, prosperous, independent nations that play a full part in the European family of nations.”
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The second attack on Johnson came after he warned that the UK should “be ready for disruption” after claiming he will play “no-deal hard-ball” in Brexit negotiations if he becomes the next prime minister.
The former foreign secretary and ex-mayor of Remain-voting London has promised that under his premiership, the UK will leave the EU on October 31st with or without a deal. Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the 2016 EU referendum and MSPs backed Remain in a Holyrood debate on EU membership.
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford MP, pictured below, said: “Scotland did not vote for this Brexit disruption that Boris Johnson promises yet it is a very real prospect as the favourite in the Tory leadership contest threatens to crash out of the EU with a No-Deal that would be disproportionately devastating for Scotland.
“Scotland can do so much better than a Brexit Britain where our views are ignored, our interests sidelined, and our future dictated by the likes of these out-of-touch politicians in hock with the right-wing and politics of Nigel Farage.
“Scotland has huge potential as an independent nation in the EU – it’s future must not be left in the hands of Boris Johnson and this cohort of extreme Brexiteers.”
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