GORDON Brown has said plans for a separate Scottish currency shows that the SNP are becoming “more extreme” in their pursuit of independence.
He made the comments, which were dismissed by an SNP MP as “out of touch” during a speech organised by the Fabian Society and Hope Not Hate at Westminster Cathedral Hall in London.
The former prime minister said that, partly because of Boris Johnson, the Union between Scotland and England was “more at risk than at any time in 300 years”.
READ MORE: SNP hit back at Gordon Brown over independence comments
He added: “It is under threat from a Scottish nationalism that has become more extreme and more determined to create completely separate institutions – a Scottish pound, and to leave the UK customs union and the single market.
“And its under threat from either the indifference or the antipathy of the Conservative Party which has ceased being the Conservative and Unionist Party and is now the Conservative and Brexit Party.”
Brown said the SNP failed to “understand that you have a problem, a multifold problem when you break relations with the rest of the UK”.
He continued: “How much more difficult is it as we have found, to disentangle a 40-year-old relationship with the rest of the European Union, how much more difficult is it to disentangle a relationship that is 300
years old and based on integration and interdependence that has built up not just over 40 years, but over centuries.”
The SNP’s Tommy Sheppard described the comments as a “tired, out-of-touch intervention” from the former Labour leader.
He added: “People across Scotland know that they now face a clear choice over their future – as a prosperous independent country, or shackled to an insular Brexit Britain, with politicians like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage running the show.
“The case for independence is being strengthened by the day through the chaos at Westminster.”
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